by Isobel Carr
She shook off the daydream and returned to the task at hand. With a few precise stitches, she reattached a Dorset thread button to Leo’s shirt cuff. It was amazing that they’d found it, lost among the sheets. The earbob she’d lost in the library was still missing.
A sop to the gods or some such. A small price to pay for such pleasure, really.
She could have left the mending to Nance, but her poor maid had enough to do keeping up with the frequent damage to Viola’s own wardrobe. Asking her to repair the rents and tears of Leo’s clothing as well would be too much.
Besides, Viola rather liked having something to do when Leo was gone for the afternoon. And this task allowed her to play with the memories of just how that particular button had been torn from its cuff, or how a seam had been rent.
She set the repaired shirt aside and reached for the next one in her workbasket. Across the room, Pen stirred in her sleep, feet twitching madly. Viola held the shirt up and turned it over in her hands, hunting for the damage. Ah, yes. This one’s seam had given at the shoulder as he’d yanked it off just last night.
She let the linen pool in her lap and fingered the bite mark that lay hidden beneath her fichu. She’d shared her bed with men concerned only with their own pleasure, with men barely even up to claiming that, and with men who’d moved her to orgasm, but she’d not taken any real pleasure in doing so.
She’d never had a lover whose sole goal was her pleasure, or who’d been so genuinely enamored that he’d left marks without even knowing it. There was something about it that left her feeling powerful. Something delightfully wicked. Each mark like a badge of honor.
Still savoring the slight aches of her various well-earned bumps and bruises, Viola put her needle back to work. As she set the final anchor stitch, the door opened and Pen surged to her feet, hackles up.
Mr. Pilcher didn’t so much as spare the grumbling dog a glance. “Mr. Sandison has arrived, ma’am. Shall I—”
“Don’t bother announcing me, Pilcher.” Mr. Sandison burst into the room, pushing past Pilcher with a scapegrace smile. “Mrs. Whedon and I are already acquainted. Good God! What the devil is that?”
Pen’s low protest became a full-throated growl. “Pen!” Viola stood, snapped her fingers, and pointed at the ground. The dog quieted, but moved to place herself between Viola and Sandison.
“Hello, Mr. Sandison. This horrible beast is Penthesilea. And she’s being a very bad girl.” Pen flopped at Viola’s feet, head propped up on her crossed paws. “I’m afraid Lord Leonidas is gone for the afternoon. Have you eaten? Shall I send Pilcher for something from the kitchen?”
“No, no, ma’am. Thank you. I stopped at the Craven Bull not an hour ago.” He crossed the room slowly to take the seat farthest from her. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but is that your dog?”
Viola nodded, amusement curling her lips into a smile.
“Not quite most ladies’ idea of a pet, is she?”
“Pen was something of a volunteer.”
His brow wrinkled, one eyebrow rising in question.
“A very enthusiastic volunteer,” she continued. “Impossible to deny, you might say.”
“Impossible to get out of the carriage, you mean.” Leo strode into the room, hair slightly windblown and boots dusty.
Pen leapt up and ran to greet him. Viola’s pulse leapt, too. She took a deep, steadying breath. Leo gave Pen a hearty pat, just as he did his horses, and she wriggled with joy, her stub of a tail wagging frantically.
“As I remember it, my lord, you had no problem ordering her out.” Viola sat back down and reached for another piece of mending.
“Only to be met with two pairs of pleading eyes. Admit it, Vi, you’d have turned back to London with this beast in tow if I’d not given way.” Viola shrugged as Leo wiped ineffectually at a long smear of slobber Pen had left upon his breeches. “Don’t let that placid expression fool you, Sandison. Mrs. Whedon is every bit as bad as Beau when it comes to getting her way.”
“No one could be as thoroughly unscrupulous as your sister when it comes to getting her way. Except, perhaps—”
“My mother.” Leo’s eyes crinkled with merriment as he cut off his friend, and they both burst into laughter. Pen leaned into him, and he dropped one hand to absently play with her ears. With sudden decision, he pushed her away. “Come along, Sandison. Come and see my new colt. He’s a thick, heavy-boned Irish beauty. He ought to be up to even Thane’s weight when he’s grown.”
Mr. Sandison sketched her a slight bow as Leo ushered him from the room. The door shut on a note of laughter from them both. Pen whined at the door, then shuffled across the room to reclaim the sunny spot on the carpet.
“How very domestic.”
Leo glared at his friend and refused to be baited. Sandison knocked the head off an encroaching plant with his crop and continued toward the stable.
“She’s darning your bloody stockings, Mrs. Whedon. The woman has brought half of London to their knees, and you’ve got her doing your mending. You’d think”—he glanced back over his shoulder to see if his darts were hitting home, and Leo forced his expression to remain as bland as possible—“a man of your reputation could find something far more imaginative to keep her busy.”
“She seems content enough.” Leo thrust his nosy friend into the cool shade of the stable. He wasn’t about to tell Sandison that she was mending only what she herself had torn asunder, and that without a bit of mending, he’d be wandering about in nothing but his drawers.
Sandison’s smile plainly said he didn’t believe him in the least. Leo paused to scratch Quiz. The gelding lowered his head and shook it like a dog. Leo dug his fingers into the sensitive spot just beside Quiz’s ear.
Sandison picked his way around a pile of droppings. “Too much a gentleman to tell your friends all the glorious details? Lud. It’s not as though I can’t just read her memoir.”
“Ah, but what she chooses to write is her own business, just as what I choose to divulge is mine.”
“You always were a tight-lipped bastard, Vaughn.”
Leo gave a bark of laughter, and Quiz jerked out of his hands with an affronted snort. “Any further sign of my cousin or the treasure?”
Sandison shrugged one elegant shoulder and flicked a bit of hay from his sleeve. “I saw MacDonald at the Ackroyd route. Got an icy glare and a rude hand gesture from him as he left.” Sandison smiled slyly and Leo raised one brow. He knew that look. Sandison meant devilment.
“After all the time I’ve spent in Mrs. Whedon’s house, I do have a very solid idea of her general tastes,” Sandison added. He held one hand out to the new colt and clucked his tongue. “Bohea or Pu Erh for tea. Black glycerin soap from Spain for her bath. Her room smells of Eau de Cologne, her stockings of lavender… and a copy of Julius Caesar’s Commentarii—in the original Latin—on her bedside table for a bit of light reading.”
“Leave her stockings out of it.”
Sandison grinned, then turned his attention back to luring the colt to him. “Noted. What about her shoes? Are they too out of bounds? They do, after all, touch her stockings.”
“I know this is likely an impossible request, but don’t be an ass, Sandison. There was nothing at all? No secret door in the larder? No hidden staircase to an attic room?”
“No, no, and no. I know the trail in the letters leads to number twelve, but perhaps we have only part of the story. Perhaps they took the money with them when they fled. Or maybe it had already gone on to the next stage of its journey before everything fell apart for the prince.”
Leo ran a hand over his face. “Perhaps, but I’m not prepared to give up on it just yet. Maybe there’s some clue I’ve missed in the letters.”
“Or maybe the letter that would tell us what we need to know is what is missing.”
Leo nodded, knowing that his friend’s suggestion was all too likely a possibility. “Well, if this turns out to have been nothing but a wild goose chase, I’ll simply have to fa
ce up to selling Dyrham.”
Sandison eyed him sharply. “Is Dyrham really so unsound?”
Leo nodded. “It’s a hunting box. A rather grand one, I’ll grant you, but it was never meant to be self-supporting. Oh, I could live on here without the prince’s treasure, but everything would go to rack and ruin before I was sixty.”
“The old duke forget to take the cost into account when he left it to you?”
“I rather imagine that Grandfather didn’t give it a second thought. It must have seemed incidental to him. Just one of many small holdings, none of which pulled its own weight.”
“But what does that matter when one enjoys them, eh?”
“Exactly. No different than the house in Mayfair, or the one in Bath.”
“Except,” Sandison said, “that an estate such as this, with a stable full of horses and a full staff, costs a hell of a lot more to maintain.”
“That it does.”
Sandison whistled softly, and the colt finally stepped up to the door of the box stall. He rubbed his thumb over the animal’s wide blaze.
“He’s a handsome devil, isn’t he?” Leo asked.
“Yes. I imagine Thane will be mad for him.”
“As well as my brother, Squire Watt, and a few dozen others. But they’ll all be decidedly out. This boy is mine. He’s going to be the foundation sire for my stable. It’s taken me three years to find just the right blend of blood and bone.”
“Going to set yourself up as a gentleman farmer?” Sandison smiled as he stepped away from the stall and brushed off his hands.
“Something like that, yes. If the universe cooperates.” Leo paused as the sound of carriage wheels on gravel became distinct. “Ten pounds it’s Thane.”
“Done. Thane has never beaten Devere anywhere in his life. It’s beneath his dignity to rush.”
Leo chuckled. Sandison was right about that. The idea of Thane in a heat or a hurry was simply impossible to picture. Even when delivering a speech in the House, he was always calm and precise. But one of these days, the sleepy giant would wake, and Leo was willing to bet his new colt that the result would be more than worth the wait. Today was unlikely to be that day, but Devere wasn’t due until tomorrow, so it was even odds as to which of them was in the carriage.
The jingle of the links of a collar reached them and then de Moulines’s greyhound came dancing into the stable, quickly followed by Devere and de Moulines himself. The Frenchman whistled, and his dog rushed back to him, a fawning sycophant of the first order.
“You’d best hope Mrs. Whedon’s new pet doesn’t eat the Dauphin,” Sandison called out by way of greeting.
De Moulines gave them both a quizzical look. “Has she adopted a tiger? Or perhaps some poor gypsy’s bear?”
“No, just a mongrel mastiff,” Leo assured him. “And I’m sure the Dauphin is more than capable of charming away her snarls.”
The greyhound, upon hearing his name repeated, slunk forward and thrust his head under Leo’s hand. Leo ran his fingers over the silken fur. “That’s a good boy. You work the same magic on Pen, and we’ll have no worries at all.”
CHAPTER 20
… and though I have often heard him called a brilliant speaker in Parliament, one could have wished to have found him brilliant in other areas. Alas, both his wife and I were doomed to disappointment.
Viola signed the final t with a flourish and placed the period with such satisfaction that she nearly punctured the sheet of foolscap. That did very well for Sir Hugo. A niggling bit of disquiet stirred within her. She was very nearly done with her manuscript. She brushed the feather tip of her quill across her chin.
When she was done, there’d be no reason to stay on at Dyrham. She could return to London, to her friends, to her life. She could pick up the strings of gossip, superintend the replanting of her garden…
Viola sighed and caught the feather between her teeth. She would buy a horse when she returned to London. Her afternoon ride was something she was entirely unprepared to give up when she returned to town.
And then there was Leo himself. The very fact that her feelings had become involved at all was something more than worrisome. It was mortifying and untenable.
She was growing too comfortable at Dyrham. It was becoming hard not to think of it as home, as hers. And it had happened with alarming ease. Something about the haphazardly furnished house had simply laid claim to her. Only last evening, she’d caught herself niggling with the idea of a house party, mentally matching up her friends and Lord Leonidas’s, planning whom to seat next to whom at dinner…
She dipped her pen into the inkwell, resolute. This was the final section, the final story, and when it was done, so too was her time at Dyrham.
“Deliver him to Dyrham tomorrow. Mr. Pilcher will be expecting you and will have your payment ready.” Leo let his hand linger on the chestnut’s withers. Fine-boned in the way of Thoroughbreds with a great deal of Arab blood, the gelding had a beautifully sculpted head and a thick, heavy mane. He was the perfect mount for a lady, and he’d suit Viola to a tittle.
The gypsy’s nut-brown face crinkled with a smile as he nodded and led the mare away. The man called out something to his fellows in his own tongue, and one of them raced up to take the horse from him.
“Come. Watch the duck racing.” De Moulines waved him over. “It is outrageous. Only the English would do something so ridiculous.”
Beside him, Devere shook his head, raising his eyes briefly heavenward. “What? Are you trying to tell me the French have no country traditions?”
“Bah.” With a flourish, de Moulines took a snuffbox from his pocket and carefully raised a pinch to one nostril. “You can eat French traditions: cheese, wine, pâté. Only the English enjoy being made sport of for their fellows. It is a mystery.” He shrugged and slipped the enamel box back into his pocket.
“Oh, do shut up, my fine frog.” Sandison poked de Moulines in the ribs with his crop and then gave him a comical sa-sa, wielding it as though it were a sword.
The Frenchman made a face, idly brushing a speck of snuff from his coat sleeve. “An appropriate enough weapon for you, Sandison.”
The Englishman burst into laughter. “Given your talent with a blade, I’m not likely to attack your person with anything more serious. Now do come along, both of you. There’s a filly on the far side I think Vaughn should see. Got a rump that will lift her over a hedge like she has wings.”
De Moulines waved them off and wandered away with Devere to watch the duck races. Sandison smiled at Leo and tucked his crop smartly under his arm. “Do you think that showy chestnut is up to Beau’s weight?”
“He isn’t for my sister.”
Sandison raised one brow and stared him down. “So you’re buying Mrs. Whedon a horse? Because that delicate creature certainly isn’t going to be carrying you.”
Leo felt the first hint of embarrassment burning up his neck. He clenched his jaw, teeth grinding against one another till he thought he might crack a molar. Down by the river, a cheer went up as a sopping man emerged, holding a madly flapping duck aloft. A nearby horse tossed its head in protest, and there was a sudden scuffle as its groom was dragged a few feet before regaining control.
“Don’t you think she’d rather have something a little more…” Sandison paused, hand circling about dramatically as he hunted for the right word. “Pawnable? Or at least more traditionally lover-like?”
“I think it’s none of your bloody business,” Leo ground out. Sandison continued to stare at him, a woeful, supercilious expression on his face. Leo flexed his hand, allowing himself the indulgence of at least imagining the satisfaction of sending Sandison sprawling across the grass.
His friend shook his head and heaved a heavyhearted sigh. “What do you think’s going to happen when she finds out just why you seduced your way into her life and her bed? Do you even remember that you set this all in motion with a purpose? That you’re not really her protector? Good God, man—”
“She’ll shoot that chestnut, that’s what!” Sandison yelled after him.
Leo yanked his hat from his head and swiped his hand over his forehead, rubbing away the itch where the straw had sat too long against the skin. He squinted as the sun slid out from behind a cloud, gilding everything in shimmering heat. If Viola found out what he’d done—why he’d done it—he’d be lucky if she didn’t shoot him.
CHAPTER 21
Viola turned the massive brass-and-leather dog collar over in her hands. Leo smiled as she studied it. The brass had been stamped with Strayed from Dyrham. He’d been inspired at the horse fair when he’d seen the men selling them. He’d present her with the gelding later.
Her expression went from bland to confused. Her straight brows pinched in, causing a furrow over the bridge of her nose. She looked up at him, blinking rapidly, as though searching for something she couldn’t quite grasp.
“In case she goes wandering.” Leo took a step toward her. “I thought she’d be safer if—”
“But we—she—I…” Her shoulders slumped, her eyes clouded with disquiet. “I don’t live at Dyrham.”
The floor creaked, and the door banged shut behind him. Leo turned to find his friends had fled. Wise of them. The Dauphin’s nails clicked across the floor as he circled back to join Pen on the rug. He whined softly, and the mastiff laid her giant head on his flank.
“I was hoping you’d stay for the summer.” Leo plucked the collar from Viola’s unresisting hands and turned to buckle it about Pen’s neck. The dog licked his hand, and he ruffled her ears.
“Oh.”
Leo swallowed hard and kept his face turned toward the dogs. There was an entire conversation in that simple word. Regret, trepidation, sorrow, fear. He could sense them all swirling around her, much like the starlings at Kirby Muxloe: dark, menacing, and unwelcome. He’d made a mistake, but for the life of him he couldn’t fathom what it was.
