Charlotte Louise Dolan

by Three Lords for Lady Anne

  He further surprised her, however, by tucking her arm into his and escorting her down the hill. She started to point out to him that she was just as capable of descending a hill unaided as descending a ladder, but that only brought to mind what had happened in the library the last time she had refused his assistance. Somehow ladders and kissing seemed to have become indelibly linked in her mind.

  On the other hand, she rationalized, although his assistance was not necessary, since she was hardly in danger of tumbling down the hill, it was indeed pleasant—in a companionable way, of course—to walk arm and arm with a man, or rather with a friend, she corrected herself quickly.

  The boys ran helter-skelter down the slope ahead of them and vanished into the house, and she realized with dismay that she was alone with the baron. In the dark. With no one around to observe them—no one to overhear what they might say—except, if she would be honest with herself, what she was feeling was not exactly dismay.

  Her heart began to race unaccountably fast, and she wondered if he could feel her pulse pounding in her wrist.

  “I have succeeded in meeting the challenge you offered me, Miss Hemsworth,” he said, his voice low enough that the boys would not have heard even if they had still been close by.

  “Challenge?” For a moment she could not think what he was talking about.

  “I can now tell which twin is which.”

  “Oh?” was all that she could think of to say. She felt vaguely disappointed that his thoughts were on such mundane matters.

  “If you would like to test me?”

  “That will not be necessary,” she began, but he interrupted.

  “Oh, but I insist on proving myself. I would not want you later to be able to throw it in my face that I have merely pretended to know.”

  Her indignation was instant, and she tried to retrieve her hand from his arm, but he refused to release it.

  “No, Miss Hemsworth, you must strive not to be so overly sensitive. I meant no insult. I think, on the contrary, that I said what I did, not because I doubt your word, but only because I wish to show off for you, and here you are trying to deny me that pleasure.”

  “I would not wish to deny you pleasure, my lord,” she blurted out without thinking. Then feeling herself blush, she looked up at his face, which was now well illuminated by the light coming from the windows.

  It was as she had feared. He was smiling down at her. For the first time in her life, she wished her Aunt Sidonia had taught her some of the more normal female accomplishments—such as the proper way to conduct a casual flirtation with a man.

  Lord Leatham made no effort to take advantage of her unfortunate choice of words, and for that she could only be grateful. When they reached the entrance to the house, he released her hand, and there was nothing improper in the way he held the door open for her and escorted her up the stairs. Irrational as she knew she was being, she could not bring herself to be thankful that he was staying within the bounds of propriety.

  She was, in fact, still having a hard time keeping her mind off the subject of kissing. It was only with the greatest effort that she was able to avoid staring at his mouth.

  Not that she was interested in him romantically, of course, since she did not have a romantic disposition. It was only that she did have a streak of scientific curiosity as strong as that of the twins, and this was one area of study where her education was woefully deficient.

  As had become their custom during the last few days, Lord Leatham accompanied her to the nursery to tuck in the boys. After they were settled down, he told them the story of one of his adventures, this time an amusing episode that had occurred during the course of a long sea voyage.

  Anne had to struggle to keep from smiling at the number of times he managed to call the twins by name—each time the right name with the right boy, of course. On the way back down the stairs, she congratulated him.

  “You concede I have won the wager?”

  “Indeed, my lord, you are a quick study.”

  “I only regret that we did not set any forfeit. But I am sure you will be a gracious loser and join me in the library for a drink to help me celebrate my victory. It is the least you can do,” he added when she hesitated.

  Even realizing the danger she was putting herself into, she could not resist the opportunity to banter with him. “No, my lord, it is the most I shall do.”

  “Touché, Miss Hemsworth.” He smiled and held the door of the library open for her, allowing her to enter first.

  We are only going to share one drink, she tried to convince herself. He is definitely not going to kiss me again.

  Ignoring the settee as too dangerous, she seated herself in a wing-backed chair a little apart from the others and watched him pour from a cut-glass decanter. The room was shadowed, the night seemed hushed, and if she did not have a practical nature, she would say it was a very romantic setting—the leathery smell of the many books, the few candles like tiny stars, two goblets of ruby-red wine....

  “Here you are, Miss Hemsworth.” He held her drink out to her.

  And she must not forget her companion, she thought, because the gentleman was, after all, the most important element in any romantic scene. In this particular case, any lady would be satisfied to have such a tall, handsome, charming lord at her side. The mood was such that Anne was even able to put out of her mind, at least for the moment, how aggravating and arrogant Lord Leatham could be.

  What she could not forget, unfortunately, was that he was her employer. And she was not a dainty, helpless, romantic heroine in a novel by Mrs. Radcliff; she was only the governess.

  Taking the wine he was offering her, Anne breathed in its heady perfume and sampled the bouquet, but she did not find it the least bit intoxicating.

  She was, after all, a most practical, very sensible, completely reliable, extremely resourceful, and always much-in-demand governess, but still and all—no, she was not the least bit romantically inclined.

  “I have a problem, Miss Hemsworth, and I would like your advice.”

  Anne looked up into dark, intense eyes.

  “I am trying to think of something to say that will get your hackles up, some remark guaranteed to put you in a taking. Perhaps you can suggest something suitably enraging.”

  “You wish to pick a quarrel with me, my lord? To what purpose?” Surely he did not prefer squabbling to this peaceful equanimity of spirit.

  “Because, Miss Hemsworth, you are sitting there in isolated splendor, which makes it deuced hard for me to kiss you. If I can make you angry enough, you are sure to leap to your feet, which will make it so much easier for me to take you in my arms. But maybe I am making things more complicated than necessary. Perhaps all that is needed is a simple request.”

  He took the goblet from her now nerveless fingers and set it down on the table beside the chair, then held out his hand to her in silent invitation.

  Still in shock, she stared up at him. “But why on earth would you want—” She stopped, so embarrassed she could feel the heat rise to her face.

  “To kiss you?” He finished the question for her. “When I have undoubtedly kissed so many women during the course of my travels around the world? Is that what you were going to ask?”

  “You go too far, my lord,” she said angrily, “and I have no intention of sitting here and discussing kissing with you.”

  She stood up with the sole intention of leaving the room, but he stopped her with the lightest touch of his hand to her cheek. She willed her feet to move, to carry her away from him, but they remained obstinately still, as if rooted to the floor.

  “And I have no intention of discussing kissing, either,” he said with soft laughter in his voice. “No matter how adept the poet, the pleasure of a kiss is not to be found in words, but in the deed itself.”

  He stood too close, yet even while she watched, he leaned perceptibly closer. Her mind shrieked at her to flee while she still had the opportunity, but her heart pleaded with her
to stay ... just a little while ... only long enough ...

  Both his hands now cradled her face, and she knew she should make some protest. Then his fingers slid around to caress her neck, and her eyes slowly drifted shut of their own accord. It had to be the sip of wine she had taken that was making her feel so light-headed. “This is conduct unbecoming a governess,” she murmured. “I shall undoubtedly lose my position.”

  “Shhhh,” he whispered. “You will find that your employer is very lenient in such matters.”

  His lips brushed softly against hers, and her knees weakened even more than when he had kissed her ear. She had not even enough strength to resist when he pulled her into his arms and held her with her head pressed against his chest. His heart was pounding loudly beneath her ear—

  No, someone was pounding on the door. “My lord,” she said faintly, “I do believe someone is trying to get your attention.”

  Lord Leatham added to her education by uttering a very colorful phrase, but then with a sigh, he released her and went to the door.

  Without his support, her knees gave way and she sat back down with a plop in the chair he had so recently teased her out of.

  Indeed, it would appear that Lord Leatham had been correct when he had warned her of the perils lurking in scientific experiments. Kissing would appear to be even more dangerous than rockets.

  The low sound of voices reached her from the hallway, but she paid them no mind until one voice stood out quite clearly—a distinctive voice she recognized but could not believe she was hearing.

  Tiptoeing to the door, which his lordship had left slightly ajar, she peered through the crack. At first she could see nothing but Lord Leatham’s back, but then he moved slightly and she found herself staring directly at Dear Aunt Rosemary.

  Chapter Ten

  Bronson kept his face carefully impassive while the woman rattled on with her story about her coachman having lost his way on the moor. She concluded her tale by explaining how one of the carriage wheels had struck a hidden stone in the dark and been broken, leaving herself and her daughter in what appeared to be desperate straits.

  “Oh, I cannot tell you how thankful we were when we saw the lights of this house. I vow, ‘twas like the Hand of Providence reaching down to save us. We are saved, my dear, sweet Rosabelle, we are saved, I said. Surely the good people who live in such a charming manor will not hesitate to offer us succor until our wheel can be fixed and our journey put forward.” The woman fluttered her eyelashes at him, but behind the missish airs she was feigning, Bronson could see cold calculation and greed.

  Admittedly, he might have found the account more believable if he had not already heard it on three other occasions, each time related with great pathos by a matchmaking mama with her simpering offspring in tow. It had been years since any of that sisterhood had set her sights on him, but apparently he was not yet so long in the tooth as to have completely lost his appeal as an eligible parti.

  Although the chit being obliquely offered for his approval was comely enough in a china-doll sort of way, the mother was an unfortunate example of precisely how the daughter’s superficial prettiness would with the passage of years become coarse and overblown. There was about the pair not the slightest hint of refinement, and in his mind Bronson categorized her as the wife, or perhaps widow, of a moneyed tradesman. In short, she displayed all the signs of being one of the mushroom class.

  ‘I shall have the housekeeper prepare rooms for you,” he said curtly, wishing there were some way he could in good conscience turn them away from the door. But he had no doubts that the wheel really was broken, and the two females were stranded here, miles from any other habitation, though he doubted strongly that fate or misfortune had had a hand in the matter.

  Like as not, Daws would discover by the light of day that the stone had been used to batter and break the wheel. It was not beyond the bounds of possibility that the stone had even been brought along in the carriage expressly for that purpose.

  But these machinations would avail the travelers little. Mrs. Pierce-Smythe, as she called herself, would find it truly amazing how rapidly a wheel could be transported to Tavistock, and how ready the wheelwright would be to drop whatever he was doing to see to the needs of the Marquess of Wylington, ten years old though he might be.

  Breakfast would have to be provided here for the two stranded wayfarers, but they would find themselves back in town in ample time to partake of the midday repast provided for hungry travelers at the Red Stag, or several of the employees at Wylington Manor would be looking for other jobs.

  “Oh, thank you, my lord. I shall just instruct my servants to bring in our luggage, for if we are to be cast upon your hospitality, I know you would want us to be comfortable.” She arched her eyebrows up in what was obviously intended to be a significant manner.

  Having taken part in this melodrama three times previously, Bronson was familiar enough with the script to know his lines by heart, but sheer obstinacy and the knowledge that Miss Hemsworth was waiting for him in the library kept him from playing the genial host and politely ushering the pair of females into an anteroom where they could wait in comfort. Instead, he stood impassively in the hallway and watched while an impressive number of trunks, portmanteaus, and bandboxes were dragged in by four liveried grooms, their efforts directed by a lady’s maid who spoke French with the most appalling Cockney accent.

  Equally impressive was the flood of small talk that bombarded him. Although the young chit seemed to have as much conversation as a dressmaker’s dummy, the older woman had an apparently inexhaustible supply of meaningless chatter, and he could fully understand why her husband might have found the grave a more restful place. For indeed, by the time Mrs. Plimtree arrived to show them to their rooms, the mother had confirmed that she was indeed a widow—from Yorkshire, but, she was quick to point out, originally from Lincolnshire, and related in some way Bronson could not quite grasp, to various minor gentry in that county, of whose existence he had until this evening been totally unaware.

  He was hard put not to show his boredom with her continued explanations of the various and assorted ramifications of her purported pedigree, but he managed to stand his ground and murmur, “Just so,” at the appropriate places. It was with great relief that he finally saw the backs of his uninvited guests vanish up the stairs in the wake of Mrs. Plimtree.

  The library, when he finally returned to it, was empty. At some time during his absence, Miss Hemsworth had apparently exhausted her patience. Not that he blamed her—he knew exactly who to blame for the disruption of what should have been a very pleasant evening.

  The curses that he then called down upon the heads of Mrs. and Miss Pierce-Smythe, he had picked up from an Egyptian camel driver, and they would have shocked even Daws, had he been in the room to hear them and had he understood Arabic.

  Then putting the intruders completely out of his mind, Bronson poured himself a measure of brandy, threw himself down in the chair so recently occupied by the intriguing Miss Hemsworth, and let his thoughts drift back to the delightful kiss they had shared.

  He had early on convinced himself that his reaction the first time he had kissed her had been induced by a combination of many things, beginning with his travel fatigue, adding the frustration of searching all over Tavistock for the elusive governess, then his unconscionable behavior when he met Martha Miller, and culminating in the discovery that he had been guilty of leaping to certain unfounded conclusions about the new governess.

  As attractive as Miss Hemsworth was, he had found it easier to believe that it had been these extraneous events that had weakened his resistance to that point that a simple kiss—the mere touching of lips—had seemed to him to be more than it actually was. More than it could be, in fact.

  In that he had erred. The kiss this evening had engendered in him an even stronger reaction—a burning desire to possess this woman. Until now, he had always felt that such intensity of emotion was nothing more than a flig
ht of imagination on the part of poets, novelists, and callow youths.

  It would appear that he still had something to learn about life—or at least about women.

  * * * *

  Mrs. Pierce-Smythe dropped her genial manner as soon as the bedroom door was shut behind her. “Zizette, you will discover immediately which room belongs to Mr. Trussell.”

  “But ma’am, ‘tis—”

  “Zizette! I did not hire you to speak English.”

  “Pardonez-moi, madame. Eet ees très late, and perhaps the monsieur is already dans son lit—in hees bed.”

  There was a dead silence in the room, and the widow merely stared at her maid with a cold eye. Like a dead fish, was the way Zizette had once described that look to her sister Maggie, who was employed in a milliner’s shop.

  “Très bien, madame, I shall try to discover where Monsieur Trussell sleeps.”

  “And be discreet about it, Zizette. I do not wish to find myself thrown out in the cold after I have gone to so much effort to gain admittance to this house.”

  * * * *

  Anne stood just outside the circle of light emanating from the library windows and watched Lord Leatham sip his brandy. Drat the man! Unable to go through the hallway to reach the safety of her room, she had dashed out of the house in a panic, lest Lord Leatham take it into his head to usher her cousins into the library.

  Unfortunately, although she had made two complete circuits around the manor, she had not found a single door that Chorley, in his newly sober and conscientious pursuit of his duties, had failed to secure tightly. The only way into the house was back through the French doors leading into the library.

  But that option was also not viable, because Lord Leatham seemed determined to spend the night sitting in front of the fireplace in the library sipping brandy.

  If he had not kissed her, she could simply go back into the library now with some excuse about having wanted to look at the starry heavens again.

  But he had kissed her, and if she rejoined him, she had not the slightest doubt but that he would kiss her once more ... or perhaps twice more ... or thrice more ....