In response the duke slowly rose as well. His earlier smile returned, and the easy charm with it.
“So here you are,” he said, “turning me out after all.”
Cautiously she smiled back as he headed to the door. She’d seen enough of men to know that, duke or not, this one was the kind who would make either a most loyal friend and ally, or a most dangerous enemy. Now she could only guess which he’d be for her.
“Good night, Your Grace,” she said, and this time managed to remember a curtsey, albeit one made lopsided by the coverlet around her shoulders. “Now I have it right, Your Grace, don’t I?”
He paused at the door, his hand on the latch and his expression purposefully unreadable.
“Yes, Miss Winslow,” he said at last. “I’d vow you now have everything exactly—exactly—as it should be.”
Slowly George climbed the dark back stairs, questioning his sanity with every step. Although Feversham was his, he’d never been to this part of the house before, consciously avoiding it because he knew Fan’s rooms were here.
Not that he didn’t try to imagine what those rooms were like. Did her bed have posts and curtains, he wondered, or was it small and narrow? Had she added the little luxuries to make her quarters a home, cushions on the chair, a soft wool coverlet, an earthenware tea service, and a handful of novels for company, to keep away the loneliness when the wind blew and the rain dashed against the windows? In those two rooms, he knew she slept, and washed, and dressed, and undressed, and picturing even one of those simple but intimate acts was enough to make George groan.
He told himself he was coming here now to see if she felt better, or if there was something he could send to ease her discomfort. Any thoughtful master would do the same with one of his people, the same way he’d visit the sick bay to look after his ill and wounded crewmen. If he also found the opportunity to apologize for how he’d behaved towards her in the stable, well, then he would do that, too.
And if in her gratitude for such a noble apology, she decided to invite him to linger in her rooms with him, to show him exactly the kind of bed she did have, to kiss him again, of course he’d—
No. He wasn’t going to her rooms for that, and bitterly he swore at himself for letting his thoughts once again roam back to this morning. Hell, hadn’t he spent nearly every blasted second reliving that kiss as it was? He’d never experienced anything remotely like it, because he’d never known another woman remotely like her. She’d made his heart pound and his blood turn hot with desire, and before their lips had even touched he’d been hard and ready in his breeches for her.
With another oath, he struck the banister hard with his fist and continued up the stairs. Only a minute; he’d stay only a minute, and then he’d leave.
At the last landing, he saw the soft candlelight from the end of the hall. He frowned, quickening his steps. There shouldn’t be a light here, not unless Fan had left her door open. Then he heard her laugh, soft and low, unmistakable, followed by the deeper rumble of a man’s voice.
At once George stopped, riveted to the stair. He’d thought what he’d found with Fan was special, just between them. Yet here when he’d been so damned gentlemanly about coming to her rooms, clearly there was some other bastard who’d made the climb before him, and at her invitation, too, from that seductively soft laugh of hers.
The door clicked shut, taking the wash of light with it, and the stranger’s footsteps came down the hall towards George. They’d have to meet on these stairs; there was no other way down, and George set his candlestick on the windowsill, determined to have both hands free for whatever came next.
What came next, humming a haphazard scrap of an opera’s theme as he began down the stairs, was Brant, his expression as happily satisfied as a man’s could be.
And in an instant, all of George’s frustration spilled into the shock of learning he’d been betrayed by his own brother.
“What the hell were you doing with Fan?” demanded George, so angry he could barely put the words together. “You couldn’t even let one day pass before you went after her, could you? Not even one blasted day!”
Abruptly Brant stopped, too, three steps above his brother. “Whatever are you saying, George? What are you implying, anyway?”
“I’m not implying a damned thing,” said George furiously. He reached up and shoved his brother, shoved him so hard he staggered back. “And I’m through talking, too, because you never listen.”
“That’s because you don’t have anything to say, you bloody idiot,” snarled Brant, shoving George in return. “Go ask Miss Winslow yourself. Go ask her, and she’ll tell you what—”
But George’s anger finally exploded, his fist squarely catching his brother’s handsome chin and sending him flying back against the wall. With a grunt Brant scrambled to regain his footing, then threw himself at George, knocking him down the last two stairs and to the landing, the two of them rolling over and over as they struggled to hit the other. They hadn’t fought like this in years, but the old boyhood tactics came rushing back, driven by anger and resentment and ancient competition.
Until they heard the gunshot, the ball whistling close enough over their heads that they both felt the splinters of flying wood as it struck the wall.
“What the devil,” growled George, instinct driving him now as he pushed free of Brant to turn in the direction where the shot had come.
“What the devil, indeed!” cried Fan, completely dressed and standing at the top of the stairs in a fading cloud of pale gunpowder, the pistol still clutched tightly in her hands, and more a vengeful fury than a woman who’d just dallied with a lover. “Behaving like a pair of mongrel dogs, you two are!”
“Fan,” said George, breathing hard as he sat upright. “Fan, I cannot have guns firing in my house. You could have killed one of us.”
“Not if you’d killed yourselves first, falling down the stairs and breaking your overbred necks, just like His Grace said would happen!” she declared, her own anger spilling over. “If you won’t have gunfire, I won’t have fighting, either, and unless you two begin behaving like the gentlemen you are, then I shall turn you both out into the yard with the other animals, see if I don’t!”
She turned with a final disgusted sigh and a flurry of black skirts, and marched back to her rooms while Brant and George watched wordlessly in something close to awe. For a long time they sat there still on the landing, catching their breaths and patting gingerly at their new bruises.
“What a vastly amazing creature,” said Brant finally, wincing as he smoothed back his hair. “Ah, George, George, you have met your match at last, and there’s none more perfect for you in all Creation.”
Chapter Nine
John Small watched Fan set the master’s tray for breakfast, wearing his curiosity as boldly as he did the spotted kerchief around his head.
“So do it be true then, mistress?” he asked finally, his thumbs tucked into the ties of his apron while his mate Danny listened intently. “Did you fire a gun at the two merry Claremonts last night?”
Fan sighed. Living alone for so long, she’d forgotten how fast exciting gossip like this could fly through a house.
“Yes, I did,” she announced, knowing there’d be little use in denying such a thrilling truth, especially with the proof of it still buried in the paneling in the back staircase. “Not that it’s any of your affair, Mr. Small.”
“Oh, aye, but it do be my affair,” he said with relish, coming to stand beside her. “It be all our affairs among the Nimble’s people here at Feversham. We’ve each one of us bound our fortunes to Cap’n Lord Claremont, sure as sure, he’s that good a man. But what would become of us if you’d’ve killed him outright, I ask you?”
“But I didn’t,” protested Fan. Why couldn’t any of these men have faith in her skill or accuracy? Father had insisted that there was more danger in carrying a gun that you didn’t know how to use than in not carrying one at all, and he’d made sure she’d prac
ticed until her aim was sure, especially at night. “I’d no intention of killing your captain, or his brother His Grace, either. All I wished to do was startle them out of their tussling before they broke their necks falling down the stairs.”
“Aye, now that would be a pretty mess, wouldn’t it?” Both Small and Danny shook their heads solemnly. Yet for the first time there was an undeniable admiration in Small’s gaze, something Fan had never expected to see. “The duke and the captain, mashed together in a pulp of blood an’ gristle at the bottom of the stairs.”
Fan wrinkled her nose as she spooned the marmalade into the silver pot, wishing he hadn’t been quite so descriptive with the same gory delight that the duke himself had favored. “I suppose I’m glad you understand, Mr. Small.”
“Oh, I understand.” Sagely he tapped a finger to the side of his bulbous nose. “Even lords an’ officers need a thrashing every so often, to keep ’em honest and agreeable. But if we’d’ve been at sea, by now you would be in irons an’ charged with mutiny for what you done, and facing a dangle from the yardarm as your reward.”
“Then how fortunate that we’re at Feversham instead,” she said, carefully picking up the tray to carry it upstairs. At sea she’d be faced with hanging from the yardarm for mutiny, while here it could be the gallows for smuggling; neither seemed a more pleasing prospect than the other.
“Ah, but you still do be a rum one, missy,” said Small, beaming with approval. “A right rum one, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Else you’ll take your blunderbuss to them directly, eh?”
He and Danny laughed, but all Fan could muster was a weak smile as she left the kitchen with the tray. She’d no intention of causing such a fuss when she’d fired the gun over the heads of the two brothers last night. They’d left her no choice, really. At first she’d tried shouting at them to stop to no avail, and had finally used the pistol only when it seemed her last recourse.
Not that it had even seemed that drastic at the time. Her father had never been afraid to use his gun to get the attention of the Company men, and she’d done it herself, too, when they’d fallen to fighting among themselves.
But there were several grave differences about last night. First of all, they’d been indoors, and the gun had caused damage to the old paneling. Next, the men she’d fired over were both lords, and one was also the owner of the house where she lived and worked. That was bad enough. But then there was also the perplexing matter of her having kissed George in the morning, and aimed a pistol—the same pistol he’d deemed hideously unladylike—over his head at night.
Who could guess what would happen now?
When she entered with the breakfast tray, George was already at his table writing letters, the way he usually did this time of day, and though he smiled at her when she entered, she sensed a definite wariness about him this morning. She could hardly blame him. After last night, she was feeling a bit wary herself.
“Good day, Fan,” he said, rising to clear aside his papers so she could put the tray on the table between them. “I, ah, I wasn’t certain I’d be seeing you this morning.”
“No?” she asked, surprised, and wondering if he’d expected her to be halfway to Scotland and fleeing a charge of attempted murder. “Whyever not?”
“Because you were unwell yesterday,” he said, looking surprised himself. “You still look somewhat, ah, pale.”
And no wonder, too, she thought, since she’d spent most of the night traipsing across the countryside, delivering the grim news of the increased prices to her customers. Three hours’ sleep could make anyone look pale.
“And because after Brant arrived,” he continued, “I didn’t see you again until—ah, until later.”
“Yes.” She clasped her hands before her, determined to plunge ahead as she’d planned. “Later, it was. I wish to speak to you of that, George.”
He smiled warmly. “There’s no need to apologize, Fan, not to me or to Brant. We understand.”
“But you don’t,” she said, perplexed. “I’d no intention of apologizing because I’m not sorry for what I did. I wished to stop you from risking your lives by fighting one another on the stairs, and though I know you believe women should not handle firearms, I was glad I did what I did. I won’t apologize for it, any more than I shall apologize for having the pistol in the first place.”
“You won’t,” he said, a statement, not a question, and equally perplexed.
“No,” she answered as firmly as she dared. “What I wished to say was that I expect you to take the cost for repairing the wall from my wages. Shall I pour your chocolate?”
“Yes, please,” he said, though he didn’t sit back down in his chair. He hadn’t shaved yet, his jaw rough with stubble and his hair still unruly from bed. “But the truth is that I wasn’t planning to have the wall repaired at all.”
“You weren’t?” she asked uneasily, pausing with the pot in her hand. She’d always thought that his being a gentleman, clean-shaven and well-pressed, had been much of his appeal to her, but seeing him this way, gravelly and sleepy-eyed before his breakfast, was more dangerously intimate, more intriguing, especially with the unmade bed behind him. “I thought you always wanted everything shipshape and tidy.”
“Not this time.” He smiled proudly, clearly pleased that he’d surprised her. “I’d rather leave the ball where it struck as a reminder. One more fantastical story for Feversham’s history—the night Mistress Winslow tried to shoot the duke!—to be recited along with Sir William Everhart and his sixteen matching chairs in the parlor.”
“As you wish.” It wasn’t exactly the story Fan would have chosen to be remembered by, but the house was his, and if he wished to leave the hole unmended, it was his right to do so.
“Yes, indeed. Yes.” He cleared his throat self-consciously. “Then I suppose it is my turn to apologize, Fan. For yesterday morning, when I—”
“There is no reason for you to apologize for that,” she said swiftly, her cheeks burning at the memory.
“There most certainly is,” he said sternly. “What I did was unforgivable, Fan, both as a gentleman and as an officer, and I—”
“No apologies, and no forgiving, either,” she said, setting the chocolate pot back down on the tray with an indignant thump. “You kissed me, George, and I kissed you.”
“But I am the master,” he insisted, in his best—and worst—captain’s voice. “Because of my position, I took advantage of you.”
“And perhaps because of my position, I also took advantage of you.” She sighed unhappily, wishing she could make him understand. “Oh, George, can’t you see? You’re making this sound as if I had no choice in the matter, as if all I did was stand there like an unfeeling block of wood!”
He frowned. “I would not kiss a block of wood, Fan.”
“And I would not have kissed you had you been only the master,” she said, troubled. “I don’t think of you like that, George. I don’t believe I ever have, not since you first came to Feversham.”
“How much better for us both, then, if I’d never come at all,” he said, his frown deepening. “Better if I’d left you as you were, and gone to another house.”
“It would not have been better for me,” she said quickly. “How could I wish never to have met you, or for what has happened to be otherwise?”
He looked up at her so sharply she felt her heart race and her palms grow damp. “You have no regrets?”
“I don’t regret what I cannot change,” she said, and she meant it. “The past is done, and it’s only the future that’s still mine to make different.”
“Then you do not believe in kismet, Fan?”
“Kismet?” she repeated uncertainly, the word new to her. “I do not know what that is, let alone whether I believe it or not.”
“Kismet means that everything in our lives is predetermined,” he explained, his voice low, confiding, as if telling a special story just for her. “That you and I were fated to meet, to kiss, even to s
tand here now, with my chocolate growing a chilly skim across the top. Kismet has already decided the smallest detail of every one of our days, and we miserable mortals are helpless to do anything but follow along the charted course. It is a notion much favored among the Turks and others in the East, and my brother Revell learned of it when he lived in India.”
“But not for here!” she said, scandalized. “What a heathen, barbarous notion, that we can choose nothing in our lives for ourselves!”
Another man would have turned her objection into teasing about her country ways, but George didn’t. “Very well, then, no kismet,” he said almost solemnly. “But if you believed so strongly in determining your own fate, Fan, what kind of future shall you wish for yourself?”
“My future?” She hadn’t expected that, and the simple question made her pause. She couldn’t answer it with entire honesty, at least not about the part of her wished-for future that would include him: that was too farfetched a dream to confess aloud, especially to him.
“Why, what would be expected, I warrant,” she said instead, hedging. “I would want to remain here at Feversham, because it is my home. I would wish to be useful all my days, to have my health and my wits, and not to want.”
“That is all, Fan?” he asked incredulously. “A humble sort of future you want, and a lonely one, too. Don’t most women wish for a husband and children?”
She flushed again, even as her chin rose defensively. “You asked for my future, George, not for anyone else’s. But I could turn your question back upon you, and make you tell me what you wish for yourself.”
“My own future, you mean.” His smile was uncertain, almost shy, but his eyes held her gaze with an intensity that only increased the warmth that had flooded her cheeks. “Very well. I wish for another command, another ship, another chance to serve my country and my king with honor. That much has been the same with me for years. But now there’s more.”
The Silver Lord Page 12
