“You were a child in this house, Mr. Grant?” she said.
They had reached the second floor; a short wing went to the right and a longer wing stretched straight ahead of them. There were chairs and cabinets and paintings lining each passage. The light from the skylight followed them as far as it could, but that was not especially far. He led her down the long passage and opened the first door on the right. It was done up as a study with a desk near the windows and books in tall glassed cases and a fireplace that was freshly laid with fat coals.
“I was, Miss Whitton,” he said. “A child with a missing tooth, for a year, as I recall. This room can be a bedroom, as needed. There are beds aplenty in the attic that can be moved to accommodate your needs.”
How on earth had the leasing agent found himself living in this grand house? Perhaps his mother had been the cook. But that hardly explained it as the cook’s sons would not have been given free access to the main staircase of such a grand house. Of course, they could have been sneaking about, doing naughty boy things where they should never have been in the first place.
“How many rooms are currently furnished as bedrooms?” she said, having worked out how Mr. Grant had fallen down the front stairs of the house as a boy to her satisfaction.
“Five,” he said. “Far more than the current owner requires, hence this room was fitted out as an office for the estate manager.”
“It looks remarkably tidy,” she said, walking into the room to inspect the fireplace. The oil painting above the mantle was of cows in a field and a black dog in the foreground. There was not a speck of dust to be seen.
“The estate manager has not been in residence for many weeks,” he said.
“Is that how long the house has been available?” If so, she would certainly be able to negotiate down the price. As long as she did not look into his eyes and become distracted.
“No. It has just become available.”
“What is the reason for the house being let?” she asked. “That’s a very pretty dog, by the way,” she said, indicating the painting with a wave of her hand, “though I do not think a painting of cows is quite the thing if this is to be a bed chamber.”
“It can easily be stored,” he said, walking to the window. “The view of the square is quite good from here.”
She walked to the window, aware of his body not a foot from hers. It was very disconcerting. She did not enjoy being aware of Mr. Grant’s body.
He was probably trying to distract her by his nearness in an attempt to negotiate the price, though how he thought to do that was a bit beyond her comprehension. Still, she was certain he was up to something and that whatever it was, it would do her no good at all. She was in the market for a house, nothing more. Well, she was also in the market for a husband, but Mr. Grant hardly qualified for that position. Hardly. It was laughable, really.
“Are you aware of the reason the house is available?” she said. She had not forgotten her question, lest he think otherwise. She was more adept at negotiation, and inappropriate male nearness, than that.
Inappropriate male nearness, most decidedly. She moved half a step away from him and looked out the window. A very nice view of the square. Yes, quite so.
Mr. Grant was wearing some kind of scent. Something very unlike her father’s scent. Naturally, for he could hardly afford her father’s scent, could he? Of course he couldn’t. Still, he smelled very pleasant. For a leasing agent.
“A death in the family, as it happens,” Mr. Grant said, still staring out the window.
“I see,” she said, feeling a tiny jolt of pleasurable anticipation. The owners would surely want the house off their hands at the earliest opportunity. They were grief-stricken and distracted and must need the money the house would bring. It was the ideal circumstance to drive a crisp bargain. “I do hope it wasn’t death of the lingering sort.” Because then the family would have had time to adjust to the idea and would be less susceptible to a quick resolution.
One had to be hard-hearted in these situations. One could hardly drive a price down if one was sloppily sentimental. Judith was absolutely hopeless at it, of course. Judith was sloppy sentimentality defined.
“No, it was quite sudden, as it happens,” Mr. Grant replied. “Of course, an unexpected death can be difficult for the family, especially the man’s mother.”
There was something in Mr. Grant’s tone of voice that tickled her ear and she turned to look at him. His profile was clean and sharp in the filtered light coming through the window. The sky was overcast and gray and the clouds were heavy and moving swiftly across the sky, the sun absolutely defeated. Mr. Grant did not look moist about the eyes, not at all, but there was something about his voice, some tremor or hesitation, some poignant and undefinable emotion that nearly forced her to look at him.
“Are you acquainted with the mother, Mr. Grant?” she asked.
He quirked a half smile and turned his head just enough so that his eyes met hers. “Quite well acquainted, Miss Whitton. She is my mother as well as Percival’s.”
To this, Julia could but gape. She had never gaped before in her entire life.
“Percival Grant was my elder brother. I am leasing the house because my mother resides in York and I have no use for a house of this size in Town.”
She continued gaping. She was vaguely aware that she felt the rising surge of embarrassment and perhaps, yes, even horror. She was at a complete loss.
“Miss Whitton? Are you quite well?” he said.
Gaping and yet more gaping. His eyes took on a very worried look and his mouth almost frowned.
“I’ve given you a shock, it seems,” he said. “Please, sit down, Miss
Whitton, until you are yourself again.”
He led her to the desk chair, the closest chair, and somehow she sat.
“You might have told me,” she said.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said.
“I mean, Mr. Grant, that you might have told me you were the owner of this house and not merely the leasing agent,” she said. She needed a cup of something, she truly did.
“I discharged the leasing agent,” he said.
“Why?” she said. At his raised brow, she added, “I would like to know why you discharged the leasing agent. Surely he is better equipped to deal with the leasing of a house in Town, even if it is your house.”
It was his house. It was his house!
“I fail to see how that concerns you, Miss Whitton,” he said.
He said it mildly, to be sure, but he said it. He might as well have screamed in her face that it was none of her business and, as it happened, he was not answerable to her in any fashion whatsoever. It was what she would have said if their positions were reversed.
“It might have prevented some confusion,” she snapped. Of all the stupid things. She would have behaved so differently if she’d known he was the owner of a house in Portman Square. She was too unsettled at the moment to behave differently now, however. “I took you to be the leasing agent, you know.”
“Did you? Well, what of it? I am leasing the house. Your father is in the market for a house to let. What matters if I also hold the deed?”
She looked up at him, glaring. Was ever a more ignorant question asked of a woman ready to marry?
Mr. Grant stood on the far side of the desk, looking down at her with some amusement.
“You are recovering, I see,” he said, moving to stand across the room, in front of the fireplace.
“You sound more confident than I feel,” she said, rising to her feet. “I do think you should have said something when I made that comment about your brother being a horror. That was not well done, sir.”
“I have never heard him described more accurately and with such economy of expression. I took no offense, Miss Whitton, I assure you.”
He did not look offended, in truth. An elder brother who pushed a younger brother down a marble stair was no angel of deportment, that seemed certain. Boys could
be simply horrid.
“Thank you. I think,” she said, smiling in spite of herself. Really, she was most put out with him. He had seen her at her most combative; her bargaining posturing was hardly the image of an adoring and biddable wife, and a man who owned a house on Portman Square, even leased, was in definite need of a wife. Unless he already possessed one? “It is a lovely home. I wonder that you can leave it at all.”
“I have no firm ties to London, Miss Whitton. Would you care to see a bedchamber or two before returning to your father?”
He walked to the doorway, gesturing with a negligent wave of his hand to the rooms in question. She did not think she should look at bedchambers with a man who was not a leasing agent. It was an activity ripe for gossip and as she had no name beyond her connection to the Duke of Danby, she must protect the shining purity of her name at all cost. Whatever mostly innocent fondling that had happened in India with her betrothed, was buried in India, with her betrothed.
“I don’t believe that is necessary, Mr. Grant,” she said, putting a silky smile on her lips and looking up at him with what she hoped was charming modesty and virginal discretion. “We should return to my father, don’t you agree?”
“If that is your wish, then that is what we shall do, Miss Whitton,” he said.
“Thank you, Mr. Grant. You are very kind.”
To this remark, Mr. Grant raised a single brow, took her elbow, and led her to the stair. He held her arm as they descended, the sunlight shining on his mass of hair and causing the golden streaks to sparkle. She could only assume that her pale gold hair was doing equally remarkable things and that her eyes, a very ordinary shade of blue, looked ocean blue or hyacinth blue or some other shade of poetic, hypnotizing blue.
If Mr. Grant looked at her hair or her eyes, or her profile or her depressingly unremarkable bosom, she was not aware of it. He seemed entirely preoccupied with descending the stair with care and precision, and making certain she descended with care and precision. Of course, once having fallen down a flight of stairs, that would make all the difference, wouldn’t it?
“I don’t suppose you will miss this staircase, will you?” she said as they reached the bottom of the stair.
He looked at her, a sideways glance that shimmered with amusement. “Not very.”
“I shouldn’t wonder.”
“I have never told anyone that story, you realize. Not even my mother, not that she would have believed me.”
“I can’t credit that,” she said. “A mother’s love would surely have come to bear against any assaults.”
“Yes, I suppose that explains it.”
Somehow, his response didn’t quite answer to hers; there was a cross current at work and she couldn’t make sense of it.
“I am very sorry about your brother. It must be very difficult, losing him so suddenly.”
They stood at the base of the staircase, the hall bathed in soft light, Mr. Grant’s hair looking plain brown again and his eyes a very ordinary blue. He was not a particularly handsome man, not particularly tall or particularly narrow or particularly anything. But he had lost his brother, and even if Mr. Percival Grant had been an absolute horror, he was still a brother. Losses of that degree were always deeply felt.
“It was very sudden, actually,” Mr. Grant said. “Death always seems sudden, doesn’t it, even when we know it comes to all of us in our turn. It is obvious that my brother must have known he would die, and therefore, prepared himself and his affairs for it.”
What a morbid train of thought. Well, he had just lost a brother. It was to be expected.
“It may come to all of us, Mr. Grant, but that doesn’t lessen the shock of it.”
“Doesn’t it?” he said.
Now he was just being contrary for its own sake.
“The rain comes, as expected. We still get wet,” she said stiffly. “It is still an unpleasant experience.”
Mr. Grant smiled mildly and indicated by a motion of his hand that they should proceed through the hall to a door toward the rear. Julia accompanied him, chin held high. She had quite a nice profile; she hoped he was noticing it.
The door led to a wide passageway, the passageway to a small back garden. Small, but very pretty. Beyond the garden wall were fields and trees and in the distance, on a small hill, a village just barely visible.
“It’s lovely,” she said. “The cattle are allowed to graze just beyond the wall, I suppose. How picturesque.”
He did not reply. He merely kept a mildly pleasant expression on his face, his gaze unfocused and on the middle distance.
“I hope I have not upset you, Mr. Grant,” she said. This was the worst beginning to a courtship that she could have imagined. She simply must repair whatever tears she had inflicted and make a better impression on the man. He owned a house in Portman Square! And his eyes were quite nice, too. “I have two sisters and I don’t know what I would do if I lost either of them. The shock of it would fell me, I am certain.”
Mr. Grant looked down at her, his mild expression intact. “I begin to think that there is not much that would fell you, Miss Whitton.”
That sounded almost like an insult. In fact, she was nearly certain it was an insult.
“I’m not certain I understand your meaning, Mr. Grant,” she said.
“I only mean, Miss Whitton, that you seem the sort to always have an umbrella in hand, for the inevitable rainfall. You, Miss Whitton, are not the sort of woman to find yourself out in the weather, unprepared.”
Definitely an insult. If there was one thing she knew, and she knew far more than one thing, it was that men didn’t like for women to have umbrellas, symbolically speaking. Men wanted to be the umbrella. She simply had to turn this around. And, because she had been betrothed once, she knew how to go about turning Mr. Grant in her direction.
She turned to face him, lifting her chin, looking him squarely in the eye, parting her lips to say softly, “I do not have an umbrella now, sir. I am out in the weather, and anything may happen. I am entirely vulnerable, am I not?”
If he were any kind of man at all, he would be tempted to kiss her. Or take her hand and kiss it, if he were the honorable sort. Or even the smallest act of taking a step nearer to her, bringing their faces close, would reveal that he found her desirable and fascinating and all those other things men were required to feel before they made an offer of marriage.
Mr. Grant’s eyes looked almost silver in the gray light. The sky had darkened, clouds massed into a sprawling tumble of deepest gray edged in violet. Where the clouds were not gathered, the sky was purest blue. The wind was mild yet steady, blowing thick locks of his hair about his head, like a caress from an unseen hand. He looked, in that instant, the picture of a romantic hero from a story. Like a man created to inhabit rhymed couplet. Like a man fashioned from cloud and dewdrop and faerie dust.
Ridiculous. She was beyond such fantasy, or she should be. Her third nanny, from the furthest reaches of Scotland, was to blame, most certainly. She never should have been engaged to teach three impressionable, motherless girls.
Mr. Grant opened his mouth to speak and she could not look away, though she probably ought. Would he attempt a kiss? She could not accept one, naturally. They did not know each other well enough for that. He should propose first, and once he had, she would allow him a kiss or two. A few kisses did no one any harm.
“Miss Whitton,” he said, “you are without question the most capable, most sturdy and stalwart woman I have ever encountered.”
That sounded highly unpromising.
“Am I?” she said. She may have batted her eyes. She wasn’t entirely certain. There was something about his nearness that was muddling her thoughts.
“You are a very shrewd negotiator,” he said. “I wondered at first why your father permitted us to wander the property together, alone.”
That sounded horrible.
“You have me where you want me. I will let the house to you for five percent below the askin
g price, if Mr. Whitton will agree to pay six months in advance.”
“Six months? You are being absurd,” she blurted out. All thoughts of enticing Mr. Grant into marriage were buried under the familiar determination to strike a hard bargain. “One month in advance and twenty percent below asking.”
His eyes shone brilliantly blue. Sky blue. The clouds were gone, the wind had settled. She was not tempted to think of dewdrops and faeries.
“Four months and eight percent.”
They stood a foot apart, but it felt like nose to nose. She could feel the blood thrumming in her veins and her breathing became shallow as she fought for the best terms she could wring from the man.
“Two months,” she said, drawing the words out slowly, studying his face. One of his eyebrows rose speculatively over narrowed eyes. “Twelve percent.”
He narrowed his eyes a bit more, shook his head in disapproval, and when she did not respond except to stare more fully into his face, he said, “Three months and ten percent.”
Julia mentally worked the sums and said, “Done.”
“Done,” he said.
Neither one of them grinned in victory. That would have ruined the illusion that each of them were certain they had been taken out for a good financial thrashing. But inside, Julia was grinning from ear to ear.
It would have disheartened her to know that Peter Grant was doing the same.
Chapter 3
What a woman. Julia Whitton was blonde, blue-eyed, aristocratic of feature, and slender as a blade of grass. She was as finely honed as a sword and as sharp in bargaining as a rapier. She was, in a word, enchanting.
She was also, in another word, unattainable.
Not that Peter Grant was in any position whatsoever to attain any woman, even a woman not the niece of a duke. He was heavily in debt and had an aging mother to see to. Of course, life with a wife might make matters with his mother much more pleasant. Certainly his mother would think so.
The matter of his mother’s contentment settled in his mind, Peter turned his thoughts to Miss Whitton. Certainly she was in want of a husband. Why else come to Town and let a house of such importance during the Season? Her father seemed reasonable enough, if a bit complaisant. Only complaisant fathers allowed their marriageable daughters to wander about empty houses unchaperoned. Unless, of course, the Whittons considered Peter Grant to be beneath any sort of consideration and, therefore, concern.
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