As he retreated deeper into the house, the sporadic crashing and swearing eventually faded into silence.
Mrs. Philpot gently closed the French window, then returned to the cart and poured herself a cup of tea. She perched on the edge of the sofa as if she were a guest herself, her cup rattling violently against the saucer.
Mr. Beckwith sank down heavily beside her. Drawing a starched handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket, he mopped at his damp brow before shooting Samantha a contrite look. “I’m afraid we owe you an apology, Miss Wickersham. We weren’t entirely forthcoming.”
Samantha settled herself into the wing chair and folded her gloved hands in her lap, surprised to discover that she, too, was trembling. Thankful for the refuge the shadows provided, she said, “Well, the earl is not quite the gentle invalid you described in your advertisement.”
“He hasn’t been himself since he returned from that wretched battle. If you only could have known the dear lad before…” Mrs. Philpot swallowed, her gray eyes glistening with tears.
Beckwith handed her his handkerchief. “Lavinia is right. He was a gentleman cut from the finest cloth, a true prince among men. Sometimes I fear the blow that blinded him may have addled his mind as well.”
“Or at least his manners,” Samantha noted dryly. “His wit doesn’t seem to have suffered unduly.”
The housekeeper dabbed at her narrow nose. “He was always such a bright boy. Ever so quick with a quip or a sum. I rarely saw him without a book tucked under his arm. When he was small, I used to have to take his candle away at bedtime for fear he would sneak a book into his bed and set his blankets afire.”
Samantha was shaken to realize he had been deprived of even that pleasure. It was difficult to imagine a life without the solace books could provide.
Beckwith nodded fondly, his eyes glazed with memories of better times. “He was always his parents’ pride and joy. When he took that absurd notion to join the Royal Navy, his mama and his sisters went into hysterics and begged him not to go, and his papa, the marquess, threatened to disown him. But when it came time for him to sail, they all gathered at the dock to shout their blessings and wave their handkerchiefs at him.”
Samantha plucked at the back of her gloves. “It’s rather uncommon for a nobleman, especially a firstborn son, to seek a naval career, is it not? I thought the Army attracted the wealthy and the titled, while the Royal Navy was the refuge of the poor and the ambitious.”
“He would never explain his choice,” Mrs. Philpot interjected. “He just said he had to follow his heart wherever it would lead him. He refused to buy his way up the ranks as most men did, but insisted on arriving there on his own merits. When they received word that he had been promoted to lieutenant aboard the HMS Victory, his mama wept tears of joy and his papa was so proud he nearly busted the buttons right off his waistcoat.”
“The Victory,” Samantha murmured. The ship’s name had proved to be prophetic. With the help of her sister ships, she had routed Napoleon’s navy at Trafalgar, destroying the emperor’s dream of ruling the seas. But the cost of victory had been high. Admiral Nelson had won the battle, but lost his life, as had many of the young men who had fought so valiantly at his side.
Their debts were paid in full, but Gabriel Fairchild would go on paying for the rest of his life.
She felt a surge of anger. “If his family is so devoted to him, where are they now?”
“Traveling abroad.”
“Staying at their London residence.”
The servants blurted out their answers in unison, then exchanged a sheepish glance. Mrs. Philpot sighed. “The earl spent most of his youth at Fairchild Park. Of all his father’s properties, it was always his favorite. He has his own town house in London, of course, but given the cruel nature of his injuries, his family thought it might be easier for him to recuperate at his childhood home, away from society’s prying eyes.”
“Easier for who? For him? Or for them?”
Beckwith averted his eyes. “In their defense, the last time they came calling, he all but chased them off the estate. For a minute there, I feared he was actually going to order the groundskeeper to set the hounds on them.”
“I doubt they were that difficult to discourage.” Samantha closed her eyes briefly, struggling to regain her composure. It wasn’t as if she had any right to judge his family for their lack of loyalty. “It’s been well over five months since he was injured. Has his physician offered any hope that his sight might someday be restored?”
The butler shook his head sadly. “Very little. There have only been one or two documented cases in which such a loss has reversed itself.”
Samantha bowed her head.
Mr. Beckwith rose, his fleshy cheeks and drooping countenance making him look like a melancholy bulldog. “I do hope you’ll forgive us for squandering your time, Miss Wickersham. I realize you had to hire a hack to bring you out here. I’ll be more than happy to pay for your return to the city out of my own pocket.”
Samantha stood. “That won’t be necessary, Mr. Beckwith. I won’t be returning to London at the moment.”
The butler exchanged a baffled glance with Mrs. Philpot. “Excuse me?”
Samantha moved to the chair she had originally occupied and scooped up her portmanteau. “I’ll be staying right here. I’m accepting the position as the earl’s nurse. Now, if you’ll be so kind as to have one of the footmen fetch my trunk from the carriage and show me to my room, I’ll prepare to commence my duties.”
He could still smell her.
As if to taunt him by reminding him of what he’d lost, Gabriel’s sense of smell had only sharpened in the past few months. Whenever he rambled past the kitchens, he could tell with a single sniff whether Étienne, the French cook, was preparing fricandeau of veal or a creamy béchamel sauce to tempt his appetite. The faintest whiff of wood smoke would inform him whether the fire in the deserted library had been freshly stoked or was dying to embers. As he collapsed on the bed in the room that had become more lair than bedchamber, he was assailed by the stale smell of his own sweat that clung to the rumpled sheets.
It was here that he returned to nurse his bruises and scrapes, here he tossed his way through nights distinguished from the days only by their suffocating hush. In the still hours between dusk and dawn, he sometimes felt as if he were the only soul left alive in the world.
Gabriel flung the back of his hand over his brow, closing his eyes out of old habit. When he had stormed into the parlor, he had immediately identified the lavender water favored by Mrs. Philpot and the musky hair pomade Beckwith lavished on his few remaining strands. But he hadn’t recognized the crisp, sunlit fragrance of lemons scenting the air. It was an aroma both sweet and tart, delicate and bold.
Miss Wickersham certainly didn’t smell like a nurse. Old Cora Gringott had smelled of mothballs, the widow Hawkins like the bitter almond snuff she was so fond of dipping. Nor did Miss Wickersham smell like the shriveled spinster he envisioned when she spoke. If her withering tones were any indication, her pores should have emitted a poisonous fog of day-old cabbage and grave dust.
As he had drawn near to her, he had made an even more startling discovery. Underlying that cleansing breath of citrus was a scent that maddened him, clouded what little was left of both his senses and his good sense.
She smelled like a woman.
Gabriel groaned through gritted teeth. He hadn’t felt a single stirring of desire since awakening in that London hospital to discover his world had gone dark. Yet the warm, sweet smell of Miss Wickersham’s skin had evoked a dizzying jumble of scarlet-hazed memories—stolen kisses in a moonlit garden, husky murmurs, the heated satin of a woman’s skin beneath his lips. All pleasures he would never know again.
He opened his eyes only to find the world still enveloped by shadows. Perhaps the words he had hurled at Beckwith were true. Perhaps he needed to engage the services of another sort of woman altogether. If he paid her handsomely enough, she might
even be able to look upon his ruined face without recoiling. But what would it matter if she did? Gabriel thought, a harsh bark of laughter escaping him. He would never know. Perhaps, while she squeezed her eyes shut and pretended he was the gentleman of her dreams, he could pretend that she was the sort of woman who would sigh his name and whisper promises of eternal devotion.
Promises she had no intention of keeping.
Gabriel shoved himself off the bed. Damn that Wickersham woman! She had no right to taunt him so bitterly, yet smell so sweet. It was fortunate he had ordered Beckwith to send her away. As far as he was concerned, she need never trouble him again.
Chapter Two
My dear Miss March,
Despite my reputation, I can assure you that I’m not in the habit of striking up a clandestine correspondence with every lovely young woman who catches my fancy…
As Samantha groped her way down the curving staircase that descended into the heart of Fairchild Park the next morning, she almost felt as if she’d been struck blind. Not a single window of the mansion had been left unveiled. It was as if the house, as well as its master, had been cast into some dark realm of eternal night.
A lone torchière burned at the foot of the stairs, casting just enough light for her to see that the fingertips she’d trailed down the banister were furred with dust. Grimacing, she brushed them off on her skirt. Given the drab gray of the kerseymere, she doubted anyone would notice.
Despite the stifling gloom, it was impossible to completely cloak the legendary Fairchild wealth that had made the noble family the envy of the ton. Trying not to be intimidated by the centuries of privilege on display, Samantha stepped off the stairs and into the foyer. The house had long since been updated from the dark paneling and Tudor arches of its somber Jacobean roots. Shadows danced over the gleaming expanse of rose-veined Italian marble beneath her feet. Every graceful arch of molding and cornice, every papier-mâché relief scroll of flower or vase adorning the wainscoting, had been bronzed or gilded. Even the modest bed-chamber Mrs. Philpot had assigned Samantha possessed a stained-glass fanlight over the door and walls hung with silk damask.
Beckwith had insisted that his master had once been “a prince among men.” Gazing about her at the overblown opulence, Samantha sniffed. Perhaps it wasn’t so difficult to claim such a title when one was raised in a palace.
Determined to locate her new charge, she decided to employ one of the tools in his own arsenal. Cocking her head to the side, she grew very still and listened.
She didn’t hear any crashing or shouting, but she did hear the musical clinking of dishes and glassware. A sound that grew distinctly less musical when an explosion of shattering glass was followed by a savage oath. Although Samantha winced, a triumphant smile touched her lips.
Gathering her skirts, she sailed through the breakfast parlor where her interview had been conducted and out the opposite door, following the noise. As she strode through one deserted chamber after another, she was forced to veer around several signs of the earl’s passing. Her sturdy half-boots crunched over broken porcelain and splintered wood. As she paused to gently right a delicate Chippendale chair, the cracked china face of a Meissen figurine laughed up at her.
The destruction wasn’t surprising given Gabriel’s penchant for charging recklessly through the house with no regard for his lack of sight.
She passed beneath a graceful arch. The dining room’s lack of windows denied the cavernous chamber even a hint of daylight. If not for the branches of candles blazing at each end of the majestic table, Samantha might have feared she’d wandered into the family crypt.
A pair of footmen in navy livery guarded the mahogany sideboard, standing at rigid attention beneath Beckwith’s watchful eye. None of them seemed to notice Samantha standing in the doorway. They were too preoccupied with scrutinizing every move their master made. As the earl’s elbow nudged a crystal goblet toward the edge of the table, Beckwith made a discreet signal. One of the footmen rushed forward, catching the teetering goblet before it could fall. Shards of china and glass littered the floor around the table, evidence of their earlier failures.
Samantha studied Gabriel’s broad shoulders and muscled forearms, struck anew by what an imposing man he was. He could probably snap her delicate neck between thumb and forefinger. If he could find her, that is.
His hair gleamed in the candlelight, its wild tangle combed by nothing more than impatient fingers since he’d rolled out of bed that morning. He wore the same rumpled shirt he’d worn the night before, but now it was spotted with grease and smeared with chocolate. He’d unceremoniously shoved the sleeves up to his elbows, sparing the ruffled cuffs from being dragged through his plate.
He brought a rasher of bacon to his mouth, tearing off a hunk of the tender meat with his teeth, then groped at the plate in front of him. Samantha frowned at the table. There wasn’t a piece of cutlery in sight. Which might explain why Gabriel was scooping shirred eggs out of a porcelain ramekin with his cupped hand and doling them into his mouth. He polished off the eggs, then tucked a steaming crossbun into his mouth. He swept his tongue around his lips, but still managed to miss the dollop of honey at the corner of his mouth.
Although she felt like the worst sort of spy, Samantha couldn’t tear her gaze away from that single golden drop of honey. Despite his appalling lack of table manners, there was something unabashedly sensual in the way he ate, in his raw determination to appease his appetites, convention be damned. As he plucked up a fresh chop and began to gnaw the meat directly from the bone, juice trickled down his chin. He looked like some sort of ancient warrior fresh from routing his enemies and ravishing their women. Samantha half expected him to wave the bone at her and bellow, “More ale, wench!”
He suddenly froze and sniffed at the air, his expression feral. Samantha flared her own nostrils, but all she could smell was the mouthwatering aroma of bacon.
Lowering the chop back to the plate, he said with ominous calm, “Beckwith, you’d best inform me that you’ve just brought in some fresh lemon for my tea.”
As he spotted Samantha, the butler’s eyes widened. “I’m afraid not, my lord. But if you’d like, I’ll go fetch some immediately.”
Gabriel lunged across the table, making a blind grab for the butler, but Beckwith was already disappearing through the opposite door, the tail of his coat flashing behind him.
“Good morning, my lord,” Samantha said smoothly, sliding into a chair across from him, but well out of his reach. “You’ll have to forgive Mr. Beckwith. He obviously had more pressing duties.”
Scowling, Gabriel settled back into his chair. “Let’s hope they include forging some letters of reference and packing his bags. Then the two of you can return to London together.”
Ignoring the jibe, Samantha smiled politely at the frozen footmen. With their naturally blushed cheeks, freckled noses, and tousled brown curls, neither of them looked to be much older than sixteen. On closer examination, she realized they were not just brothers, but twins. “I’m famished this morning,” she said. “Might I have some breakfast?”
Even without his sight, Gabriel must have sensed their hesitation. After all, it was hardly de rigueur for a servant to dine at his master’s table.
“Serve the lady, you fools!” he barked. “It wouldn’t be very hospitable to send Miss Wickersham on her journey with an empty stomach.”
The footmen scrambled to do his bidding, nearly knocking heads as they whisked a china plate and silverware in front of Samantha and filled a tray from the sideboard. Offering one of them a comforting smile over her shoulder, she accepted a ramekin of eggs, a crossbun, and several rashers of bacon. She had a feeling she was going to need all of her strength.
As the other footman poured her a cup of steaming tea, she told Gabriel, “I spent last night getting settled into my room. I didn’t think you’d mind if I waited until morning to begin my duties.”
“You don’t have any duties,” he replied, raising the
chop back to his lips. “You’re dismissed.”
She smoothed a linen napkin across her lap and took a dainty sip of the steaming tea. “I’m afraid you don’t have the authority to dismiss me. I don’t work for you.”
Gabriel lowered the chop, his gilt-dusted eyebrows forming a thunderous cloud over the bridge of his nose. “Pardon me? My hearing must be going as well.”
“It seems that your devoted Mr. Beckwith hired me on the instructions of your father. That would make the marquess of Thornwood, one Theodore Fairchild, my employer. Until he informs me that my services as your nurse are no longer required, I shall endeavor to perform my duties to his satisfaction, not yours.”
“Well, that’s fortunate for you, isn’t it? Since the only thing that would satisfy me is your imminent departure.”
Using knife and fork, Samantha sawed a tender bit of bacon off a rasher. “Then I fear you are doomed to remain unsatisfied.”
“I realized that the moment I heard your voice,” he muttered.
Refusing to dignify the provocative insult with a retort, she tucked the bacon between her lips.
Bracing both elbows on the table, he let out a gusty sigh. “So tell me, Miss Wickersham, as my new nurse, which duty would you like to assume first? Would you like to feed me, perhaps?”
Eyeing the wolfish white flash of his teeth as they tore another hunk of meat off the chop, Samantha said, “Given your…um… unbridled enthusiasm for your victuals, I’d be a little worried about getting my fingers that close to your mouth.”
One of the footmen suffered a sudden coughing fit, earning an elbow in the ribs from his scowling brother.
Yours Until Dawn Page 2
