“Yes,” he said simply. “She is working as a laundress, but it is not right for her. She has not the strength bodily for such an arduous task, and her learning is wasted.”
“Do you think she would suit?”
Osei frowned and was silent for a long few moments. At length, he sighed and said, “I believe so, but I cannot judge. Your father should have the opportunity to meet her, at least. Would that be suitable, do you think?”
“She would have to give up her laundress position, though, to come here on a trial basis. Would that be fair?”
“My lady,” he said with deep feeling, “she needs respite from the physical nature of her position. In her last letter I noted a tone of despair.”
“Despair? She won’t—”
“No, oh, no!” he said, putting up one hand. “She would never do away with herself, for she is far too strong in her heart. Also, she has taken the Quaker religion to heart. I think she would be admirably suited to the work of secretary to a scholar, but where could she find such a position? It would have to be with someone exceptional, like your father, who would look past her sex to her mind and heart. She taught me much in the one month I spent in London when we arrived back in England, after the rescue. And in our correspondence since, I have ever only seen a delicacy of mind and an inquisitiveness of nature that would be admirably suited to your father’s research. She speaks French and Italian, for she first learned French from her life in—”
“Osei, you don’t need to convince me,” Anne said. “I trust your judgment. Please, write to her and send her enough money to come here. Or … if I decide to go north with his lordship and Lady Darkefell, I’ll send Sanderson and a maid to collect her. That may be best.”
A rare smile wreathed his lean, faintly pocked face. “Thank you, my lady. I will send a letter of introduction along with Mr. Sanderson, if you make that decision. Or I could go with Mr. Sanderson myself to collect her, for London is not so far from here.”
“But send a note by post tomorrow, first, to introduce the idea.” Anne had a momentary qualm. “I suppose I should speak to Papa about it first, hadn’t I?”
He smiled again. “Yes, my lady. If you are arranging for a possible secretary for your father, it may be best to consult him.”
She detected a twinkle of humor, and knew he was teasing her about her domineering nature. “Do not laugh at me, Mr. Boatin. If I was not the way I am, Lord Darkefell and I would never suit, as you have noted yourself. Apparently our relationship is to be a series of negotiations, like the endless debates between the French and the English. Now, run along, young man,” she said with a mocking ferocious look, “and tell the others I am just speaking to my father for a moment, and we’ll be down to supper directly.”
He rose with a smile and deposited a disgruntled and sleepy Irusan on the chair he vacated. “Very well, my lady.”
Eighteen
Her father, as she expected, was delighted by the idea. He was an unusual man, in that he was not in the least threatened by a woman of learning and ambition. When she was just nine, she had convinced him to dismiss her horrid governess, and had learned everything at his knee and from books in his library. He never once said some topics were not suitable for a woman to learn, and so in addition to the classics, languages, and geography, she had a good sense of anatomy (male and female), reproduction, and even the latest from science concerning the female mind, most of which she thought was balderdash. The most eminent scientists in the land sounded like fools when speaking to other men about women.
The earl said that Miss Simmons would suit admirably if she had half Osei’s intelligence, but by Mr. Boatin’s reckoning, as her student, she and he were equals intellectually. Anne now had only to approach Darkefell about her proposal that Osei should stay in Kent for a month, while the new secretary was trained. Mr. Boatin thought that as Mr. Posthumous Jones, his estate steward, was back at Darkefell Castle and could handle most secretarial duties in a pinch, the marquess might allow it.
Especially if it was she who asked. And so to dinner, Anne thought, as she descended the stairs.
“My lady, one moment, if you please,” Epping said as she descended.
“Yes?”
“In the normal course of events I would have given you the mail the moment you arrived back home, but given the … ahem, the … er …” His broad face was suffused with red and shiny with perspiration; he clearly knew not how to raise the topic of the prisoner in the shed, the marquess and his twin, all the events that had shaken the placid world of Harecross Hall in the last week.
“Never mind, Epping. Given the extraordinary events of the day and that we had just come from a most unusual situation and I was tired, and dirty, you decided to delay the mail. I appreciate that.” She took the letter from the silver tray he held out. It appeared to be the reply she was expecting from Mrs. Noonan’s brother, and she nipped into an alcove off the hall to read it in the light of a branch of candles. She read it, then she reread it. Rising, she slipped it through the slit in her gown into her pocket and advanced to the drawing room, where the others awaited her.
From the doorway she viewed the scene. Tony and Julius were, of course, together talking earnestly by the fireplace. Mr. Boatin was doing his best to speak with a distracted and pale-looking Mrs. Noonan. Anne now had a good idea why she had behaved as she had lately, but would take it up with her later. Anne heard a noise from behind her; it was her father. She entered the drawing room on his arm, leading him to the two handsome men by the fireplace.
“Papa, this is Lord Julius Bestwick, Lord Darkefell’s brother.”
***
Darkefell was at his leisure during dinner because Lord Harecross, having learned that Julius had been in Upper Canada, was busy asking numerous unanswerable questions about the dialects and languages of the natives. Julius grew more and more bemused and confused, while the earl soldiered on, visibly irritated by Julius’s vague answers, which were mostly that he learned a little of the various dialects, but could say nothing beyond a few commands and rudimentary pleas for food and shelter.
Unfortunately Mrs. Noonan was on the other side of Darkefell; Anne had put herself across the table from him, beside Osei, likely on purpose. If she’d been next to him, he could have done some highly improper groping just to see her squirm. Instead, he had to content himself with watching her, and catching her flush a becoming pink whenever she caught his smoldering gaze.
He ate with little knowledge of what was on his fork. He drank wine, he answered Mrs. Noonan’s frightened overtures to conversation in grim single syllables. She quit trying, eventually. He was being rude and knew it, but he could not get out of his mind memories of Anne’s beautiful capitulation the night before and thoughts of the coming night. He intended to win her completely as his bride or leave the next morning having irrevocably broken with her. He couldn’t tolerate her hesitance anymore.
And what a lie that was! Break from her? He could never follow through with that, no matter how frustrated and unsure of their future. She was his, forever, and he would plague her until she recognized that. He had to cement the relationship with the appropriate vows and he was not the type to give up until he had won his way.
The cloth was removed, fruit and nuts were passed about, and then the ladies rose. Anne made her customary speech, about the gentlemen following their inclination.
The earl rose immediately and said, “If you are ready, gentlemen, to follow the ladies, I say we go. Not a one of us is such a fellow as to sit and drink endless cups of port, I think.”
In the drawing room each could follow their inclination; Mrs. Noonan timidly suggested whist, but no one took her up, so she got out her mending basket and sat in a corner. As Darkefell had expected, Osei immediately sat with the earl and they engaged in an intense conversation, likely about some obscure dialect of Kiswahili or Cantonese. It seemed a dry and senseless thing to Darkefell to repeat the research others had done in the hope of finding so
me new nugget of knowledge, but Osei seemed engaged, and he should enjoy himself on their last evening at Harecross.
Darkefell watched Anne for a moment, but as she and Julius talked pleasantly, he could not draw her away. He was pleased that his brother liked her, though he would have been happier to have her to himself. She kept glancing at him, though, and he had the feeling she wanted to talk to him as much as he wanted to talk to her. He strolled over.
“Tony,” Julius said, his open expression warming to see after so long being hidden. “Lady Anne suggested that she accompany us north to see Lydia. I said we’d be delighted. She has suggested she go with us to Hawk Park tomorrow to see if Mother is there, then continue north, accompanying Mother in the closed carriage.”
Amazed, Darkefell turned and saw the speaking expression in Anne’s mist gray eyes. His heart pounded. This could only mean she was considering his marriage offer more seriously now. It changed everything in one moment. Given their habit of clashing at every turn he would not risk her changing her mind overnight by pushing himself on her. “I think that is a marvelous idea,” he said, mastering his tone and making it as cool as he could.
“Do you think Lady Darkefell would object?” she asked, staring into his eyes.
His first instinctive response was to hell with his mother. She had no say in the matter if he decided to invite Anne to Darkefell. But given the delicacy of this move on her part and his own wish that it advance appropriately, he said, “I am sure she would be charmed by the possibility of feminine company and yours must be more welcome than any other.”
“Besides which, she will be so happy to see Lord Julius,” Anne said with a wicked little grin, “that she would forgive anything, even to the transporting of a bison in her carriage, to get her son back to Darkefell.”
Julius laughed out loud, a shout of joy that raised the others’ heads. “A bison; how does she even know of such a creature?”
“I read, Lord Julius. Some find it an instructive and pleasant way to spend an hour now and then.”
“She has a wicked sense of humor, Tony,” Julius said with approval.
“I know. I have been the object of it many times.”
“Better than cowering away from your towering rages, or casting sheep glances at you. She was telling me of your adventures in Cornwall.” He smirked, glancing to the right and left, then leaned toward his brother. “Ghosts? Explosives? Aiding smugglers?”
“You should not be chastising me about illegal activities, brother, while your own affairs are in such a tangle. Don’t forget, when we get back to Darkefell you will still be liable to be prosecuted for the murder of Miss Landers and Miss Allengate.”
“Stop being such a dark cloud, Tony,” Julius said with a grimace of perturbation, all exuberance draining from his face.
“I don’t know how you can be sanguine that you will not end up in the same trouble all over again. Pomfroy must be dealt with,” Darkefell said, speaking of his magistrate, about whom he had serious concerns, “but I cannot make it look like I am—”
“Please, gentlemen,” Anne said with one hand raised. “Enough. I don’t think, Tony, that you can speculate on what is to happen until we arrive back at Darkefell.”
“Listen to the woman, Tony,” Julius said with a grin. “She has more sense than both of us put together.” He stalked away and sat down by Mrs. Noonan.
“I would appreciate it if you would cease to interfere in family matters, Anne,” Darkefell growled.
Her expression froze. “I will forget you said that, my lord, because you are always an idiot, it seems, when you are crossed. I have something of some import to discuss with you. May we go somewhere to be more private?”
His mood lifted at the thought of getting her alone, and he said, “I would be delighted, my lady. Where do you suggest? Your room?”
Color flooded her cheeks and she sputtered, “No, that is not what I meant and you know it.”
“Damn,” he muttered. “All right, where do you propose? This is your house, after all.”
“It is my father’s house, as you’ve pointed out repeatedly,” she rejoined tartly. “Let us repair to the ladies’ parlor next door to this room. If you go I will meet you there in five minutes. I have something to speak with Mrs. Noonan about first.”
“I will await you with avid anticipation, my lady,” he said, looking down at her and surreptitiously caressing her bare arm.
She shivered and gave him a speaking look. “None of that nonsense, Tony, I mean it. We must talk seriously.”
***
Anne watched him retreat and gathered her thoughts, then strolled over to Mrs. Noonan, who was using Lord Julius’s outstretched hands to wind wool. “May I replace his lordship, Mrs. Noonan, as your assistant for a few moments? There is something of which we must speak.”
The woman paled a little, but nodded.
Lord Julius transferred the wool to Anne’s outstretched hands, stood and bowed. “I shall join Osei and the earl, at which point I will be so far out of my element in their intellectual babble that I will fall asleep. If I begin to snore, someone awaken me. A rifle shot over my head will do as an alarm, though I have slept through such a thing before.”
Anne smiled and shook her head. It was an easy matter to see who filled the position of jester in their family.
“What do you want, cousin, dear?” Mrs. Noonan asked, her voice trembling.
“I received a letter from your brother today, Mrs. Noonan.” Anne watched her face. “He answered more swiftly than I would have thought possible. In fact, it must have been by return post.”
She paled but said nothing. The woman was only in her thirties but she appeared much older at times, the lines on her face deepening and her complexion gray with worry.
“It seems that not only is your brother not preparing a home for you,” Anne continued, “he has no intention of doing so, says his own finances are stretched to the breaking point, and is quite content to never see your boys again.”
The woman kept winding the wool into a ball, but tears started in her pale eyes and trailed down her cheeks.
“Mrs. Noonan,” Anne said gently, dropping the wool from her hands and wiping the tears from the woman’s cheeks with her thumbs, “why didn’t you tell my father the truth when you came here?”
Sniffing back her tears as best as she could, she said, her tone low, “Robert should help us. I’m so ashamed of him. No sense of family at all. He always was a selfish boy. Even if he couldn’t give us a home, if he had … had helped me find a position as a housekeeper, or … or something. Anything. But he turned us away. I didn’t know where to go and could not let my poor boys suffer.”
Anne sat back, watching her scrabble at the wool, tangling it in her haste, then put out a staying hand and calmed her fretful movements. “Madam, I will tell you now what my father would have said if you had come to us with the truth. We will never turn you away. You are family and can stay here as long as need be.”
Mrs. Noonan turned gleaming eyes to Anne, her bow mouth open in an O of surprise. “You mean … we do not have to leave?”
“No, of course not.”
Trembling, the woman shoved her knitting aside and threw herself into Anne’s arms, sending them both tumbling to the hearth rug with her exuberance.
The earl looked up with an unusual expression of irritation on his mild face. “Anne, dear, must you play at Indian wrestling in the drawing room? I know I allow you much latitude in your behavior, but I do think that is a little much.”
It took a few more minutes to settle the woman again and reassure Mrs. Noonan that Anne spoke the truth and she and her boys didn’t have to leave. Anne warned her, though, that the offer only extended to her father’s lifetime. Because of Jamey’s condition, when their father died the earldom and Harecross Hall passed to a cousin.
“My dearest Cousin Anne,” Mrs. Noonan said, “I know I was a little difficult on the subject of Mr. Wadley tutoring my boys.”
“Yes?” Anne answered encouragingly.
The woman bit her lip, but then said, her words tumbling out in a rush, “It is just that the last tutor they had … oh, he was an awful man! And … and I did not trust him. He whipped the boys, and to do it, he … he made them lower their breeches. There was something not quite right about him, how he relished those whippings.” She covered her mouth, but a sob escaped.
“Oh, Mrs. Noonan,” Anne cried, horrified. “If I had known! You should have told me.”
“It’s all right, my dear cousin,” she said with a watery smile. “Mr. Wadley is all that he should be and I am truly grateful that you forced us into this. He is a delightful dear man. I think the boys’ behavior has already improved. Mr. Wadley has gone so far as to say I am welcome there with my boys any time.”
“Good. I’m so happy.” Anne noted the pink on Mrs. Noonan’s cheeks and suspected that the vicar and she would come to an agreement about more than tutoring, given some time together. God help the parish if Mrs. Noonan became the vicar’s wife! Her well-meaning gestures would be the death of them. Anne hoped that was not literally the case.
Anne engaged Lord Julius to aid Mrs. Noonan in recovering her tangled wool and escaped. She had a lot to speak with Darkefell about and she hoped she could get through it all with a minimum of lusty interruptions.
He was reclined on a sofa by the empty fireplace when she entered; she paused, gazing at him. He had his eyes closed and she drank her fill, staring at his body in the dim light of the flickering candles. Lean but muscular, he was as attractive a picture in his attitude of repose as she had ever seen. She would like to draw him just like that, the light touching his body, highlighting sinew and bone under cloth, the lines lovely and lithe even through his clothes.
Knowing what was under that perfectly fitted jacket and beneath those tight breeches, and the pleasure he could excite within her deepest recesses, was infinitely distracting, tormenting her in moments of peace. If she had thought sexual congress would sate her and leave her cool, she was doomed to disappointment. A lifetime of lovemaking may not do that. Right this moment she was sinfully aware that if they were married, she could look forward to a night of sensual exercise to wile away the hours.
Lady Anne 03 - Curse of the Gypsy Page 21
