Miss Wellstone was young enough to flirt and more than pretty enough to know she had an effect on a gentleman’s passions. And she was unmarried. As was he, which she must surely know. Never mind that he was all but engaged to a suitable woman. Until he was actually married, he would be pestered by hopeful parents and girls with ambition.
I do hope you have something thrilling to show me.
She was flirting, he decided. He was alarmed to realize he did not feel entirely impervious to her charm. Which was considerable.
Without responding to her comment, he fetched the lantern from the table then held out his arm, and they proceeded up the stairs, with her shockingly bare hand on his sleeve. Her fingers were long, very pale, and slender. She wore two rings, a ruby on her first finger and a diamond on the one next to it. The gems were not gaudy, but they weren’t small, either.
When the stairs became too narrow to navigate side by side, he dropped back, allowing her to take the van but holding the lantern high enough to light her way. Her hips swayed as she climbed the stairs. He appreciated the view.
“Aside from the abysmal weather,” he said from behind her, “was your journey here a pleasant one?”
“It was, your grace. Until the very moment one of the horses threw a shoe. We were obliged to stop for several hours while we waited for the farrier to assist us.” They passed narrow, slitted windows with deep ledges, and she glanced out of each one even though there was nothing to see at this hour. “Your family were Yorkists, I presume,” she said as they made another dizzying turn of stairs. “During the War of the Roses.”
“Why would you presume such a thing?”
“To my recollection, which I confess might be imperfect, there are no Hamptons listed on Edward IV’s Act of Attainder.”
At least she wasn’t one of those women who pretended they were ignorant. “The Hamptons supported the House of York until after Edward was king. It’s how my ancestors eventually became dukes. After that it’s less clear. The situation was fluid.”
She lifted her skirts higher. Since by happy accident he was looking down, he caught a glimpse of two slender ankles. “Not surprising, if your relative fought valiantly.”
“We have been given to understand that he did, Miss Wellstone.” He paused, just the merest hesitation before he committed to an inappropriate reply as a test of his theory that she was not as guileless as she appeared. “All we Hampton men have valiant swords.”
“Thank goodness,” she said without missing a beat and with such artlessness that he frowned. Then she glanced over her shoulder at him, eyes dancing with amusement. “Everyone has need of a valiant sword from time to time. Don’t you agree?”
It was all he could do not to laugh out loud. She was an amusing thing, wasn’t she? “Some more than others, I daresay.”
Outside, the wind shifted and drove the rain against the windows. “The weather,” she remarked, “is another reason I was so late getting into Sheffield and then to High Tearing.”
“Left at the top.”
“Thank you.” She reached the landing and went right.
He arrived at the top of the stairs and found she’d not gone far. She was waiting a few feet away. He joined her, holding out his arm for her to take. The air here was cooler, and he saw the skin up and down her arms prickle from the cold. “Left, Miss Wellstone.”
She sighed. “I never can tell the difference.” She gave him another heart-stopping smile. “Given the nature of my one and only defect, you’d be astonished how rarely I become lost.”
“I assure you, I am already astonished.”
“At any rate,” she went on as he got them headed in the correct direction, “I had thought to beat the rain, but I miscalculated. My coachman ought not to have listened to me. He ought to know better by now.”
“Had he a choice?”
“One always has a choice, your grace.” She spoke matter of factly, and he could feel her experience of life behind the words. “The difficulty comes when one or more of the choices is unpalatable. I’m sure my coachman considered whether his position was worth his silence. He’s new to my employ. I’ll warrant he does not know I would never dismiss any servant for politely voiced opposition.”
“No?”
“Certainly not.”
They passed portraits of family members he’d never met and whose names he did not know unless he read the plates on the frames. None of the subjects bore much resemblance to him, but there were two from the sixteenth century that could have been his brother, Nigel. He liked the still lifes better than the portraits. A draft swirled the air around them as they passed a marble statue set into a niche, not Greek, but an Egyptian deity with the head of a jackal. Miss Wellstone shivered.
Without comment, Mountjoy stopped to set down the lantern and remove his greatcoat. He placed it around her shoulders, pulling the garment close around her and holding both sides near the collar until she had a grip on it. Her eyes were the darkest brown he’d ever seen on a woman as blond as she. He stood there, holding his coat around her. He allowed his attention to slide from her eyes to her mouth.
A kissable mouth. He waited to find out whether he might be invited to discover if he was right. He oughtn’t be thinking such things. There was Jane, after all, who was, whatever one thought about the weight of everyone’s expectations about them, perfectly suited to be a duchess. Miss Wellstone was a guest in his home, a friend of his sister’s. No gentleman would dream of seducing a lady under such circumstances.
She cocked her head then took a step back. “Thank you, your grace. That’s very kind of you.”
He nodded and picked up the lantern and continued walking. This time, because she was holding his greatcoat around her, she did not put her hand on his arm. He led her down a stone corridor beneath an arched and ribbed ceiling. She slowed until he had to stop or leave her behind. He faced her, curious about what had caught her fancy.
“Do you have ghosts here?” she asked.
Good Lord, he hoped she wasn’t serious. With that innocent face of hers, he couldn’t be sure. “Not to my knowledge,” he said.
“You ought to consider it.”
He was at sea. One moment he was convinced she was a helpless sort of female, none too bright, the next that she must be daft. Or intelligent beyond what her sex typically allowed a man to guess. There was more than a hint of the contrary about her, and besides, how many unintelligent persons knew about any Act of Attainder? “I beg your pardon?”
She stuck a hand through the opening of his greatcoat so she could wave. As before, her smile transformed her from pretty to ethereal. His breath caught.
“In my experience,” she said with a smile still on her lips—so, not entirely serious?—“a ghost improves a residence immeasurably. I have two where I live. I’ve instructed the staff to relate the stories to visitors on the days when the house is open to the public. They tell their friends, relations, and acquaintances when they return to their homes, and invariably, they visit, too. You ought to do the same.”
“Does that not lead to more strangers traipsing through your house?” He began walking again.
She caught up to him. His coat flapped against her legs and dragged on the floor in the back. “I adore visitors. Don’t you?”
“No.” He opened the door to the library, and, yes, it was in fact the library, one of the few rooms he could regularly find in the labyrinth that was Bitterward. He allowed her to precede him in. “Present company excepted.”
“I’m hardly a stranger,” she said on her way past him. “Ginny and I are practically sisters.”
He stopped walking. “You are not practically a sister to me.”
The moment the words were out of his mouth, he realized he ought to have said nothing. Best to think of her as a sister since there must be nothing between them but an acquaintance.
A few feet inside, she turned in a circle, scanning the room but pausing in the motion long enough to face him and say, �
��I’ve always wanted a brother.”
“I am happy to be a brother to you.”
“How lovely.” She stopped with her back to him and breathed in. Mountjoy was sorry his coat hid her figure. He crossed to a table by the door, lit another lamp, and the darkness before them receded. He moved so that he could watch her face, studying her while she was not aware he was doing so. Her eyes were closed. She was a woman of delicate beauty with golden blond hair, pale skin, and a slender, elegant figure. He could not imagine why a woman like Miss Wellstone remained unmarried.
“There is nothing quite like the smell of books.” She opened her eyes and examined the nearest shelves. “My father is not one to collect books or read much himself. He does not approve of novels.” She approached a set of shelves. “When I moved to Syton House, I supplemented my aunt’s library with all the books my father forbade me to take from the subscription library. And more.”
“Did he not object to your library additions?”
“I’m sure he would have. If he’d known. Now, it’s true, he thinks my library is a deliberate offense to him. In a way, I suppose he’s right.”
He watched her walk, but with his coat around her, he could no longer see the sway of her hips. “There is a famous home called Syton House in Exeter,” he said. “Notable for its gardens, if I recall correctly.” Eugenia had lived in Exeter with her husband. “Is your Syton House also located there?”
She looked at him over her shoulder, no sign of that breathtaking smile anywhere. “There is only one Syton House, sir, and it is mine.”
That shocked him to silence. He didn’t remember if Eugenia had mentioned the very interesting fact that her bosom friend Miss Lily Wellstone was bloody rich. “Indeed?”
“Yes.” She held a hand toward the shelves. “I can feel the tingle of all those stories waiting to be known to me.” She stayed there awhile with her hand outstretched. “Are you absolutely sure you don’t have ghosts?”
“Yes.”
“I just felt the most mysterious thrill. I would not be surprised to learn you are wrong.”
“You are fond of reading?” he asked in a low voice. He leaned a hip against the table. If she owned Syton House, she had very good connections, and the money to keep company with them. She wasn’t much like the women he’d met who came from families with those sorts of connections. Ghosts, for pity’s sake.
“Very fond,” she said.
“Tell me what books you prefer to read. I could recommend something for you, if you like.”
She turned to him, another smile on her lips. He could not imagine a woman more dissimilar to him. She was joy and wit, and, he was sure, the sort of woman who thrived among crowds and at parties. He did not.
“Adventure, your grace.” She smiled, and his body reacted with a sexual jolt. “Passion.” Though he was sure she exaggerated her emotions to amuse him, he suspected she meant every word. “To have my heart pound until I feel it might burst from my chest.”
He continued to gaze at her. She did not break the silence, and in the quiet he felt the pull of attraction. Nothing was wrong with that. He was a man, after all. Men admired women all the time without any intention of seducing them. “You were Eugenia’s neighbor. In Exeter.”
She blinked. “Yes.”
“You were a good friend to her, during her husband’s final days.”
“I hope I was, sir.”
“She spoke highly of you, Miss Wellstone, after I brought her home.”
The melancholy in her dark eyes receded. “She was kind to me, too, your grace.”
He liked her for that. Very much, indeed. Eugenia deserved that sort of loyalty and regard.
She turned back to the shelves, and he moved the lantern to the other side of the table and placed it so she could see the titles better. She reached for one of the volumes and opened it. In a soft voice she said, “Your sister was always kind to me. Despite everything.”
His voice stayed low, too. They were entirely alone here, and the household was asleep. “What would that be, Miss Wellstone? The everything to which you refer?”
She turned, book in hand, close enough to him that he could smell, very faintly, violets. It was a scent he happened to particularly like on a woman. Her expression turned more serious. “You aren’t the sort of man one easily deceives.”
“No.”
With a nod, she clutched the book, and her smile reappeared. “Best not to omit what someone will inevitably discover, I always say.” Her mood was oddly bright for a woman with news she seemed to think he would not like to hear. “The everything that makes you so curious is that I was once disowned by my father.”
He frowned. Her connection to Syton House puzzled him even more. “Once? Do you expect him to disown you again?”
“I can’t be sure. My father has always been convinced I am of a wild nature.”
“Is he right?”
She replaced her book on the shelf and stood there, her back to him, hand still on the spine of the volume.
“Miss Wellstone?”
“Yes,” she said, reaching for another book. “He is. But then you already suspect that of me.”
“I am not used to any lady being so forthright.”
“Oh, you may rely on that with me.” She turned, and he had the impression she had been struggling to hide her emotion. She hadn’t entirely succeeded. Her smile was brittle, and it made him want to take her in his arms and promise no one would ever again make her sad. Such was the effect of that angelic face of hers. She hugged a book to her chest. “My father went bankrupt, you see; that was nearly two years ago now. He hasn’t a penny left. If he had not come to live with me at Syton House, he’d not have a roof over his head.”
“I should think he’d be grateful.”
“He resents his circumstances extremely. Indeed, it’s why I have so little time here. I had to promise the servants I would be home before May or I own they would have refused to look after him. I fear he’s a difficult man to like. I don’t like to have the staff abused, you understand.” She opened her book, stared at the pages, then closed it with a sigh. “I can make an excuse, your grace, before Ginny knows I have arrived, if you would rather not have me in your home. I would appreciate, however, the recommendation of a nearby inn. It’s far too late to think of driving all the way back to Sheffield.”
He considered her offer. He liked an orderly household, and it was plain as anything that Miss Wellstone would disrupt his peaceful country existence. This was not a woman who would sweetly make herself invisible. There was also the fact that she was quite beautiful and an accomplished flirt. He was not impervious to any part of that.
“Your grace?”
“No,” he said. He shoved his hands into his coat pockets. “I won’t deny my sister the company of someone she recalls so fondly and likes so well as she likes you.” This was true. Eugenia had been looking forward to Miss Wellstone’s arrival since the day two months ago when the visit had been agreed to. His gaze traveled the length of her, from head to toe. He did like a tall woman. “Nor myself the pleasure of learning why she adores you so unreservedly.” His mouth twitched. “Despite everything.”
She pulled his greatcoat tighter around her. “My dear duke,” she said in a voice of mock sorrow. “It is my sad duty to tell you that I am reformed.”
Her smile was an invitation to sin, and he was feeling very much inclined to sin right now. Unthinkable, of course. But knowing all the reasons he should not act on his impulses didn’t divert the direction of his thoughts. Not in the least. “That, Miss Wellstone,” he said, “is a very great pity.”
Chapter Three
LATE THE NEXT MORNING LILY STOOD IN THE ENTRY-way of Bitterward and slid the rest of the way out of her cloak. She was aware the duke himself had arrived at the door moments after she had and that he now stood behind her. Doyle, the duke’s butler, stepped away from her with her cloak in hand. Already, he was reaching to take Mountjoy’s gloves, hat, and gr
eatcoat.
She exchanged a glance with Mountjoy. He nodded at her. Say what you would about his grace’s undistinguished manner of dress, his servants were efficient and meticulous in their duties.
“Lily!”
Lily looked away from the duke and saw Ginny hurrying down the stairs to the entryway. “Ginny.”
“Lily, you’re here. Doyle! You should have sent someone to fetch me the instant she arrived.” She came down the last steps. “Oh, hullo, Mountjoy. When did you arrive?”
“Last night,” the duke said.
“I meant Lily, not you.”
Not Wicked Enough Page 2
