It was a good thing he hadn’t been stupid enough to give the object of his nightly fantasies a job in his own house! Oh, the irony! Of all the stupid decisions he’d made in the last month, that one had to reign as the stupidest. His only consolation was the poor woman had no idea of his raging lust now that she was here. He sincerely doubted she would have taken the job if she had.
He reached the music room and took a deep breath. He had spent hours here growing up. Mostly on his own, but occasionally with his mother. Conscious of Penny waiting behind him made procrastinating impossible, so he gripped the handle and flung open the door.
Nothing. Only numbness.
Splendid. Exactly why he had chosen it as his temporary study for the duration.
‘Is everything to your satisfaction?’
Hadleigh instantly regretted his quick glance sideways, because she was worrying her plump bottom lip with her teeth when he really didn’t want to have to think about her lips any more than he wanted to think of her in bed with Penhurst. Or the silky, bouncing, dark curl which had dislodged itself from its sensible coiffure in her haste to keep up with him. Dragging his eyes resolutely from temptation, he took in the room.
It was a tableau of ordered perfection. Uncluttered. Simple. Eminently practical. Alongside the excellent, high desk she had chosen to accommodate his long legs and the well-upholstered high-backed chair behind it that could have been crafted with his exact measurements in mind, there were now a row of deep and sturdy bookshelves he had most definitely not requested lining the back wall. All empty. All awaiting his detailed and meticulous notes which would doubtless soon fill them in the precise alphabetical order he found easiest to work with.
How had she known he was incapable of functioning in anything less? Unless she thought him stuffy and staid, which rankled, before he reassured himself that was probably for the best. Better to be seen as a crusty, emotionless, rigidly organised nitpicker than a man who had apparently been suddenly and catastrophically consumed with lust. Hadleigh strode to the desk and practically threw himself into the chair in case that lust decided to immediately show itself.
Good grief, what was the matter with him? Had he become so overly tired that he now no longer had any control over his animal urges? ‘It is exactly as I wanted it. Thank you.’ Hardly a gushing compliment when he had barked it at her, so he tried to immediately make amends. ‘You have a canny eye for good furniture. Your parents taught you well.’ And in that single, desperate sentence, he might as well have just told her he had been lurking in the hallway, eavesdropping for a good ten minutes, because they had never had a single conversation about her parents or their blasted emporium. He knew the exact moment she realised because she quickly glanced down at her clasped, busy hands before they buried themselves in the folds on her skirt. A sure sign he had made her feel completely uncomfortable.
‘Thank you, my lord.’ Her eyes didn’t rise, but that only served to give him a better view of those beautiful long eyelashes as she chewed once again on that lush bottom lip to torture him. He needed to stop looking at her lips! ‘I take it you overheard my conversation with the Dowager.’
‘Well...er...’ Perhaps he could still save face? His talent with words was legendary, after all. ‘Er...’ Clearly, like the unmistakable bulge in his breeches, he had lost control of his vocal cords, too. For that he would blame the new dress. Where had all the dour ones gone?
‘Oh! I am so sorry!’ Her eyes finally lifted to meet his and they were swirling with emotion. It turned the pretty blue irises a deeper, stormier cobalt. ‘The Dowager asks a great many personal questions and it is almost impossible to avoid answering them!’ He watched a blush stain her cheeks, forcing him to remember that it was those exact cheeks which he held entirely responsible for his current predicament. Alongside another pretty new dress which drew his blasted eyes to the fine bosom encased within them. If he hadn’t stupidly brushed those inconsequential specks of flour off those cheeks, then he never would have realised how soft her skin was and he certainly would not have begun to fantasise about its texture beneath her clothes. ‘Although I realise it was highly inappropriate in this instance for me to answer all of them with such...candour.’
Good grief! She was alluding to the bedchamber part of the conversation. The part he most definitely did not want to discuss with her at all, because ever since he had overheard what a chore she had found it with Penhurst, God help him, he wanted to show her what it could be like between a man and a woman. Or more specifically what it would be like with him.
‘The Dowager was most insistent that it was acceptable for married ladies to talk about such things and I forgot my place and should never have allowed myself to be lured into talking about my husband’s—’
‘Please!’ Hadleigh held his hands up, supremely conscious that the tips of his own ears had begun to redden. ‘For both our sakes, I beg you, let us leave it unsaid.’ He smiled, or he attempted to smile and feared it might actually be more akin to a weird grimace. ‘I should have informed you all of my presence sooner. It’s entirely my own fault. And that is not at all what I wanted to talk to you about now.’ He needed to stop snapping. The poor woman was stood at his desk like a naughty pupil awaiting punishment. ‘Please...take a seat, Penny.’
She did, but once again was perched on the edge of the chair, ramrod straight. Beautiful blue eyes wide. Gloriously soft cheeks still flushed. That distracting coil of hair still dangling, drawing his eyes to her neck now and the acres of alabaster skin on show above the scooped neckline of her forest-green gown. The deep colour suited her. It complimented her pale complexion. Unfortunately, it also gave him the smallest glimpse of a tiny bit of cleavage as her chest rose and fell with her breathing. ‘The thing is...’ His mouth was suddenly as dry as the Sahara. ‘I wanted to apologise to you for last week.’
Her lips parted and stayed that way long enough for his to get entirely inappropriate ideas. ‘Apologise? Whatever for?’
Just say it as you rehearsed it. Get it over with. ‘My behaviour here last time was...well, a little odd,and I might have come across a tad abrupt. I did not mean to be rude, especially as you had done such a good job. Nor did I mean not to compliment you on a job well done. Being here...’ he gestured lamely to the walls and ceiling ‘...in this house after such a prolonged absence was a little overwhelming.’ Not at all what he meant to say, because being overwhelmed made him sound pathetic and despite being entirely pathetic as far as this godforsaken place was concerned, he did not want to appear that way in front of her. ‘What I mean is, this house brings back lots of memories... I was not prepared for the full extent of them.’ Time to wave it away as if it was of no matter, exactly as he had rehearsed. ‘So, how is Freddie settling in?’ A safer topic. He even managed to steeple his fingers on the table casually.
‘Freddie is doing well. I wanted to thank you for sending Gwendoline.’ He’d interviewed fifteen potential nursemaids, all highly recommended, until that kindly old lady had arrived at his chambers armed with a glowing pile of references. References he had diligently and thoroughly checked to ensure they were genuine. ‘He already adores her and so do I.’
He brushed that away, too. ‘I am glad.’ Which rather left him at a loss as to what else to talk to her about, but as he had asked her to sit, realised he needed to think of something. ‘How did you know I would want all these neat bookshelves?’
She offered him a half-smile which made her eyes sparkle. ‘I have watched you work, remember. You are an organised person by nature. So very thorough and meticulous.’ She gave a little shrug. ‘The notes in front of you in court were always neatly arranged and you seemed to know exactly where to find something when you needed it and could immediately put your hand on it. While the defence lawyers were always shuffling papers.’
‘And a predictably thorough and meticulous person needs shelves.’
She seemed very p
leased with herself. ‘Lots of them. And with all the work you have to do in the next few months, I suspect they will fill quickly. Although I sincerely hope that not all aspects of your life are so rigidly organised. A little noise and chaos enriches life, or so I’ve found. At least that is how I justify the noise and chaos Freddie brings to mine.’ She was smiling, making small talk. Extending the olive branch of friendship.
‘I get quite enough noise and chaos in the courtroom.’ Why had he said that? It sounded like a criticism when he had intended to grasp the proffered branch with both hands. Now his mouth as well as the bulge in his breeches was refusing to listen to his head.
There was an awkward gap as he racked his brains, trying to think of something, anything, to say to her to make the awkward situation feel better.
Sensing his discomfort, she stood. ‘Luncheon is at one and will be served in the dining room.’ He nodded and she made to leave, turning at the last moment with a quizzical expression. ‘Were they good memories or bad?’
‘A bit of both.’ As he said it, he realised that was true. Not everything that had happened here had been bad. When his father had been away, in many ways his childhood and youth had been idyllic.
‘But it is always the bad our mind presents us with first, isn’t it?’
‘I suppose it is.’ There had been laughter here as well as tears. Good memories lurking in these walls, too long forgotten. His eyes drifted to the pianoforte still sat in its original place near the furthest window. Remembered playing it for his mother all the time. Mozart. Always Mozart—her favourite—while she sat on a chair close by embroidering something which would make its way into his bedchamber at some point to hide among his things. Handkerchiefs, his initials woven into a flourishing swirl on all manner of clothes—cravats, shirt tails and, entirely to vex him, his drawers in case he lost them at university. With that recollection his fingers flexed and he had the sudden urge to play a tune. How long had it been since he had done that?
‘The good memories will win in the end. They always do, or at least I like to think that is the case. As you say, good should always triumph over bad.’ Words he lived by. ‘Shall I send in some tea?’
‘Yes. Tea would be lovely.’ Hadleigh waited till she had gone to walk to the pianoforte and trace his fingers lovingly over the keys. Glad he had one good memory to treasure again in the swirling sea of bad.
Chapter Eleven
Now that Freddie was fast asleep, Penny left the new nursemaid watching him while she did her final evening round of the house. The Flints and the Dowager were happily settled in the drawing room, dinner had been cleared and the dining room was spotless, and the daytime servants had retired to their own quarters now that the Invisibles had taken their posts for the night. The fact that a group of men known only as the Invisibles now seemed the norm made her smile, because not in a month of Sundays would she ever have imagined in her wildest dreams that one day she would work hand in glove with a whole battalion of government spies. She still had moments where she had to pause and wonder what a bizarre twist in the path her life had taken, when at this time last year she had still been trapped in a loveless union with Penhurst. Yet, despite the bizarre twist, things had settled into a routine over the past two weeks.
Every other day, Lord Hadleigh would turn up through the back of the house after breakfast, take tea in his new study alone which Penny always brought to him. Their exchanges were brief but pleasant. He enquired after Freddie or the Flints, appraised her of his plans for the day so that she could time luncheon and dinner properly, then he would get an odd look in his unusual amber eyes which always signalled it was time for him to bury himself in his work. On these days, he sat with Jessamine for hours upon end, asking questions, meticulously going over her answers. Her new friend came out of these sessions mentally exhausted, but Lord Hadleigh never seemed to stop. After Jessamine, he would always work alone for several hours unless he had someone else lined up to talk to. Flint or the other regular visitors—Seb, Lord Fennimore and Gray.
While those visitors nearly always stayed the night, Hadleigh never so much as stayed for dinner in his own house, preferring instead to leave as it was served at seven to ride his horse alone in the dark for the hour it took him to return to London. That bothered Penny.
Now that the November weather was starting to bite and it was pitch-black outside from four in the afternoon, she had started to worry about him all alone on those deserted roads where anything could happen. Then, of course, it was his health which concerned her. He looked more and more exhausted with each passing day. Dark circles shadowed those perceptive eyes, no doubt from exhaustion. Aside from the unnecessarily long journey he undertook twice each day he was here, the pressure of the case was obviously taking its toll. He worked too hard, cared too much about the case, and if he wasn’t careful he was going to make himself ill.
She had discussed both of these worries at great length with Jessamine and the Dowager, but no amount of their talking to him made a jot of difference. Lord Hadleigh was a stubborn man and flatly refused to listen. What she had never discussed with those ladies was the thing about it all which bothered her the most. The case and his heavy workload aside, she was coming to believe his continued stubbornness was not borne out of his belief that he knew best, but fear. There were parts of his house he deftly avoided like the plague—the morning room and anything involving stairs.
When she thought back over his first visit, those had been the places where he had been the most rigid and aloof. How could a man own such a magnificent house so close to the capital and fail to visit it for years? Nearly ten years according to the old gardener who diligently tended the flower beds. Flower beds he had carefully looked after when the rest of the house had been boarded up. However, he flatly refused to elaborate as, apparently, it was not his place to say and he always managed to leave Penny with the impression she should be ashamed of herself for asking.
Yet that only made her more curious.
His obvious reluctance to live under the same roof as his work made no sense, unless she weighed it with Lord Hadleigh’s brisk and throwaway apology on his second visit. She had known the second he had said it that he had let on far more than he wanted anyone to know.
This house brings back lots of memories... I was not prepared for the full extent of them.
She had pondered both that sentence and his expression as he said them a great deal since, because for the first time since she had known him, his inscrutable lawyer’s mask had developed a crack. One that had allowed her to see, if only for a moment, that those unusual amber eyes were a little lost and sad. Frightened, even. But she might have imagined that. Despite his tired demeanour he had certainly displayed no cracks since, although he quite obviously stayed away from certain rooms and, of course, the front door which he deftly avoided like the plague. Aside from those foibles, he was every inch the determined and tenacious seeker of justice his reputation proclaimed. She dreaded to think how many hours in a week he dedicated to this impending trial, or, more worryingly, how many hours he failed to dedicate to his self instead. He was working himself into the ground.
But if he wouldn’t listen to his friends, he certainly wouldn’t listen to her. Not that she’d attempted to reason with him. That wasn’t her place and since she had commenced her employment here, the dynamic in their relationship had changed significantly since the night of the flour. They maintained a polite distance—or at least he did. Probably because he didn’t want to muddy the waters now that she had stepped back down into the class she had been born into.
She headed to the music room to carry out her last duty, one he hadn’t asked her to perform, but which she did anyway. He worked so hard, she didn’t want him to have to concern himself with time-wasting chores such as refilling his ink pot or replenishing his neat stack of foolscap in the top drawer of his pristine desk. Most days she sharpened his quills, too. If
he noticed, he never mentioned it, so she never did either. It was a small and insignificant gesture for a man who grafted so tirelessly and wouldn’t be helped.
But as she turned into the long, dim hallway which lead to her destination, she hesitated at the sight of the thin shaft of light bleeding out from under the closed door. As he should have been long gone, she assumed one of the maids had simply forgotten to extinguish the lamps, but knocked just in case before she opened the door.
He was sat hunched at the desk, his dishevelled golden head propped on one hand as he turned and appeared shocked to see her.
‘What are you still doing here?’ A quick glance at the mantel clock confirmed it was nearly nine. ‘I thought you’d left hours ago.’ Several documents were strewn across his desk in a manner most unlike him.
‘I have some things to finish.’
‘Things that couldn’t wait until tomorrow?’
‘If I left them, they would niggle at me and then I wouldn’t sleep. I need to work through this conundrum.’ He pointed to the sheet of foolscap in front of him that was divided into two long columns. ‘When I cannot see the wood for the trees, I always list things side by side—evidence versus conjecture, motive versus circumstances, pros and cons...’ He offered her a half-hearted smile which didn’t touch his troubled eyes. ‘I’ll be done shortly. Just as soon as I work out which column tells me the answer. The one with the majority is always the right course of action.’ As if dismissing her, he turned his weary head to stare at his lists. Perhaps it was his posture—usually so straight, it was now slumped. Or the disorganised clutter on his desk, or the bleak, burdened nature of his expression.
The Determined Lord Hadleigh Page 12
