“Thought you might have heard. Rumor has it Radleigh is in financial trouble.” Arthur quietly cleared his throat. “Gaming debts.”
With a warning rumble, clouds broke overhead. An omen? Thorne turned his face in defiance to the cold rain and forced some cheer into his voice. “Come inside and join me for tea.”
“Tea, M’lord?”
“An Eastern ritual I’ve got used to with friends in Chigwell. You’ll like it, I think.” Holding the gate wide for Arthur, he winked. “Better than drowning, at any rate.”
*
Hunkered down in a velvet wingback chair, breathing the perfume of leather-bound books and burning applewood, Thorne watched through the wavy glass of the library solar as the rain pelted smiling stone cherubs in the garden. He felt oddly content. If his bride proved sensible, he could imagine a pleasant enough future at Wycliffe Hall.
In another chair, Arthur sat with his gray head bowed, his teacup dangling from one finger. Thorne’s mouth twitched. “So, what’s Carswell’s gripe with Hobbs?”
Arthur jerked upright. “Glory, but you’ve your father’s way of catching me off guard.” He set the cup in its saucer as Thorne grinned. “Toby, aye. Seems Carswell’s pet maid took a shine to him, and whatever he did - or didn’t do - the wench took it to heart. Combs is her name. Elaine Combs.”
Thorne unbuckled a shoe and tossed it aside. “Hobbs is roughly twenty now?”
“Aye, five years younger than your lordship.”
Thorne winced. “Spare me the lordship drivel, Arthur, at least when we’re alone.” He aimed for the first shoe with the second, nailed his target, and propped his stocking-feet on an ottoman. “If Hobbs can’t sow his oats elsewhere, we’d best find a new stableman.”
“Stable master,” Arthur reminded him. “And first-rate with the horses. He’s quite impressed with the Arabian you sent ahead from Chigwell, by the by. Gone to great lengths to make him feel at home.”
Buttering a scone, Thorne grunted. “Could be a waste of time. My friend Townsend will demand a rematch. He was well into his cups that eve, and royally brassed off at himself come morn. But as long as the stallion is here, I intend to ride for all it’s worth.
“And then there’s Henry.”
“Who?”
“Little Henry Pitts. Stable lad,” Arthur explained, seeing Thorne’s blank look. “Our Toby found him starving in London and took him to apprentice. Hard-working lad, good disposition.”
“So, you’re telling me Hobbs has a heart…yes, Jennings?” Thorne said, looking past Arthur with arched brow. The head-footman had just flung open the library doors.
“Begging your pardon, M’lord.” Color spotted Jennings’s gaunt cheeks; he seemed to relish his role after four years with no one to announce but agents and tax collectors. “Lord Radleigh and The Honourable Miss Stowington await you in the great hall.”
*
Caught in a hearty embrace by his father’s oldest and dearest friend, Thorne first glimpsed his bride-to-be over the big man’s shoulder.
What irony that her eyes were green, the second pair to pierce his heart today. As they widened at the sight of him, he wondered if she’d ever seen a man at close range, other than her father. And her priest. She was, after all, fresh from the convent.
“May I present my daughter, Gwynneth.” Perspiration coated Radleigh’s brow as if he’d endured some ordeal. “Gwynneth, this is Thorneton Neville, Baron Neville of Wycliffe.”
Thorne bowed. “I’m most honored, Miss Stowington.”
Gold-dusted eyelashes fell on persimmon cheeks in a Devonshire-cream complexion. Long, strawberry-gold hair rippled forward as Gwynneth Stowington felled her green-velvet hood and executed a flawless curtsey. “My lord.”
Her pout might have discouraged Thorne if it weren’t for her blush—the mark of a true ingenue. It reminded him that the pleasure of initiating her into secular life would be his. And hers, if she proved willing. His smile warmed along with his blood. “Welcome to my home, Miss Stowington.” And to yours, he was about to add, when the door burst open again.
A tall, slender maid bustled into the room—the infamous Elaine Combs, Thorne suspected, judging by the tear-swollen eyes she kept so doggedly on her task, which was to deliver two more teacups. His odd pang of sympathy died as she hurried away without tending the fire.
Suddenly he knew, for no apparent reason, that she was the young woman who’d spied upon him from the gallery yesterday. Carswell’s favorite maid, Arthur had said. Strange. She seemed less than industrious, perhaps too distracted by her troubles with Hobbs.
Thorne stirred the fire while his guests took seats. He chose a chair where he could observe Radleigh’s daughter without staring. Gwynneth gazed at the rows of books.
“You must find it strange, Miss Stowington, to be out in the world after” - Thorne glanced at Radleigh - “ten years?”
Radleigh nodded, splaying beefy hands on his spread knees. “She was eight when her mother died and I sent her to the sisters of Saint Mary, but deuced if I’d bargained on her wishing to take their vows! Not to worry,” he added hastily, seeing Thorne’s consternation, “I talked her out of it.”
“Bullied me out of it,” Gwynneth said coolly, ending her perusal of the bookshelves with a hostile look at her father. “And bribed the prioress to say there wasn’t room for me in the novitiate.”
Radleigh’s eyebrows gathered like thunderheads. Thorne tried to disperse them while soothing the girl and reassuring himself. “Do you find your father’s plans for you so objectionable, Miss Stowington?”
“I do.” Gwynneth kept her gaze on Radleigh. “He has ripped me from the bosom of divinity, and for what? To go and keep house at Radleigh Hall and wait on his every whim.”
Thorne bit off an exclamation as Radleigh shot him a warning look. Obviously Gwynneth knew nothing of the plan her father and Thorne’s father had hatched years ago.
Thorne arched an eybrow at Radleigh. “In your letter, my lord, you promised a long visit here at Wycliffe Hall.”
The older man fidgeted, scratching his head and knocking his wig cockeyed. “Aye, but the girl has only her convent rags. I’ve scheduled fittings with a dressmaker in London. We’ll depart day after tomorrow, and stop here again on our way to Radleigh Hall.” I need time, his eyes pleaded.
“Then I’ll look forward to it.” Thorne regarded Radleigh narrowly over the rim of his cup. “I trust I’ll not be disappointed again.”
*
“Well, you’d best take an interest,” Radleigh groused at Gwynneth over supper. “You’re to be the lady of the manor, after all, so by God, you’ll dress like one.”
“‘Tis a sin to take the Lord’s name in vain,” Gwynneth snapped. “And who’s to see me at Radleigh Hall but the servants? It isn’t as if you entertain. I’m to be your housekeeper and nursemaid, is what it boils down to. So my convent frocks and pinafores will be more than adequate.” She speared a juicy bit of capon.
Radleigh flushed scarlet. “You’ll wear what I pay for in London, and that’s the end of it. I’ve recruited Caroline Sutherland to oversee your fittings. No small coup d’état, I can tell you.”
“I’ve heard her name,” Thorne broke in, trying to keep peace. “Much sought after in London society, isn’t she?”
“Relentlessly.” Radleigh glowered at Gwynneth. “You should be grateful for her help.”
Gwynneth shrugged. “London society and its clucking hens mean nothing to me.”
Thorne tried not to laugh. “Isn’t she the wife of Horace Sutherland, of Sutherland Apothecaries?”
“Aye, and quite the beauty. No, ‘beauty’ doesn’t begin to tell it. She’s devastating, a goddess…tall, buxom, wide shouldered. Skin like gold, hair as dark as a rook’s wing. One glance from her black-velvet eyes will melt you to a puddle.”
“Or nail you to the wall?” Thorne ventured with a wry smile.
“Aye, that too,” Radleigh said, chewing with gusto, “and you�
��ll be thanking her all the while you’re dangling there.”
“Well she has at least one admirer,” Gwynneth said sourly.
Radleigh shook a finger. “And she’ll have one in you, just wait and see.”
“So,” Thorne said to Gwynneth, “you’re not weary of convent attire?”
She met Thorne’s curious gaze without blinking. “Nothing about the convent wearies me, my lord. And as for couture-” Shrugging, she dipped a piece of meat into the sauce. “I have lived a secluded life. One seldom covets what one never sees.”
“And when at last one does see…” Stroking the stem of his wine goblet with languid deliberation, Thorne watched Gwynneth halt her knife in mid-cut to follow the movement of his finger. “Does one then begin to covet?” he finished softly.
Gwynneth tore her gaze away and finished cutting her meat, cheeks blooming with color. “You speak in riddles, my lord.”
Thorne acknowledged Radleigh’s wink with a slight nod. The Honourable Miss Stowington might well have made a proper little nun, but she wasn’t entirely invulnerable to the charms of mortal man.
*
Thorne ushered Arthur into the study and closed the door. “‘Tis late, you should be home by now. Is the news that bad?”
“Kendall’s just come from Graham’s place.”
“Bad news indeed, if Kendall brought it himself.”
Arthur nodded gravely. “The sheep were poisoned, M’lord. Deliberately poisoned. All the signs were there, inflamed stomach linings, swollen lungs.”
“So, the pasture was powdered.”
“Likely more than once, though not so as the sheep noticed. The effects were cumulative.”
“Then I dare not open that pasture, despite the rain.”
“Risky at best, I think.”
Thorne eyed his steward grimly. “What do you make of this?”
Arthur shook his head. “I don’t know what to make of it. But pray God it will end with your homecoming. If it doesn’t, I fear someone is out to bleed you dry.”
TWO
Elaine Combs clutched a tray in white-knuckled hands and stood rooted to the floor, her heartbeat pounding in her ears.
She had not prepared for this encounter, hadn’t expected to find the curtained archway between the master sitting room and bedchamber wide open. Hadn’t expected to see, stretching in front of an open window, the master himself.
Her wide eyes darted from his chamois breeches and scuffed jackboots up to his thick black mane, unbound from its queue and cascading a quarter of the way down his bare, taut-muscled back.
He turned before she could avert her gaze, and reached for the cambric shirt on the bedpost. He froze.
Elaine forgot to breathe. Mesmerized by the blue fire in Lord Neville’s eyes, she gave a startled gasp as he snapped the shirt off the post and slid it over his head.
He emerged with arched brow. “You might try knocking.”
“Begging your pardon, M’lord. I-I thought the archway curtains would be closed and I could leave this without disturbing you.”
“‘Tis you who seems disturbed…Combs, is it?” He laced the neck of his shirt, eyeing her burning cheeks all the while.
“Aye, M’lord. Elaine Combs.” Of course he knew. Tongues were still wagging over her humiliating confrontation with Hobbs in the stables yesterday. She set the tray on a mahogany blanket-chest before the silver and china could start rattling.
“All this?” Eyeing the porridge, meat-pies, scones and jam, he chortled. “By tomorrow she’ll have me filching in the larder for a crust of bread.”
Elaine filled his teacup with miraculous control. “I daresay you might expect a feast every morn, M’lord. Mistress MacBride is that pleased to have you home.”
“Ha.” He rolled his sleeves to his elbows. “I’ll lay ten to one that before the week is out, she’ll have her broom at my backside.”
Elaine’s burst of nervous laughter died as his eyes pierced her through.
“I’ve seen you before,” he said. “Before yesterday, when you spied upon me from the gallery.”
Dear God. His eyesight was as extraordinary as his eye color. Elaine wanted to crawl under the Aubusson rug.
“Were you in service here when I left for University?”
She managed to keep her voice steady. “No, M’lord. Dame Carswell took me on while you were away.” She dropped a hasty curtsey. “I shall return later to see to your chambers-”
“You may see to them now.”
Heaven help me. With another curtsey, she turned to make up the bed. A soft exclamation escaped her.
“Is there something wrong, Combs?”
“No, M’lord, just…odd.”
“‘Tis rather skeletal, isn’t it?”
“Sir?”
“My bed, Combs. You were staring at my bed.”
Heat flooded her face again. “I was staring at what is missing from your bed, sir.”
She turned to see his shrug.
“I like light, though I’m quite comfortable in the dark. Nor do I mind a bit of a chill in the winter.” Settling on a window seat, he slathered butter over a scone. “So I’ve no use for bed hangings. You’ll notice the window draperies are open as well. They’re to remain so.”
“Aye, M’lord. Until nightfall, of course.”
“Until Kingdom Come, Combs.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Frown away. Carswell thinks me a heathen, why shouldn’t you?”
Turning back to her task, Elaine suppressed a smile. She plumped the pillows, resisting a mad urge to bury her nose in them, then hurried to set them aside and haul the top sheet up over the bed. The scent that wafted from the billowing linen rocked her back on her heels.
Sandalwood.
She clutched the counterpane until a wave of dizziness passed, all the while steeling herself for a comment from behind. It was not long in coming.
“Damnation!” China rattled on the tray.
Elaine turned with wide eyes to find her employer staring not at her, but out the window. She moved behind him to peer through the mist. Barely visible in the misty distance, a boy herded sheep through a pair of wooden gates.
“Doesn’t the fool know the bloody pasture’s contaminated?” Lord Neville swiped a napkin across his lips, threw it down on the tray and sprang from the window seat.
Elaine had no time to move. Her mobcap flew off as she collided with her master, hairpins raining around them. She stumbled backward.
He caught her swiftly by the shoulders, then froze as a lock of her chestnut-colored hair fell over his forearm. For the space of Elaine’s missed heartbeat, he stared at the silky length, then met her gaze. “Beg your pardon,” he muttered. “No harm done?”
“None,” she breathed.
“Then I dare not tarry. My apologies.” He squeezed her shoulders as if to steady her again, then bounded from the chamber.
Elaine reached the gallery in time to see him fly down the steps and vault the railing mid-way, careen across the great hall and crash through the kitchen door. “Saints preserve us, what ails ye, M’lord?” she heard Mistress MacBride cry just before it banged shut.
Elaine scooted across the gallery to an empty chamber. Through a window she watched Lord Neville sprint to the stables and leap onto the bare back of a filly just come from morning paces. Little Henry Pitts appeared, waving his arms in the doorway, but to no avail. Dirt clods spewed from under the filly’s hooves as she shot across the stable yard with her unwelcome rider, who jumped her over one drystone wall and headed for another.
“God save him, he’s got no saddle!” Elaine heard the cook wail in the garden below. “He’ll get himself killed!”
“Aye,” came the voice of Hillary, one of her maids. “Bit of a tear, ain’t he, our master? Best get himself an heir, I’d say, and the sooner the better!”
Elaine’s stomach lurched. Tears stung her eyes, though she’d promised herself she’d never shed another. After all of her weeping yesterday, she’d thought the
well dry at any rate.
But these tears, she reminded herself bitterly, sprang from a different well altogether.
*
“Do you ride, Miss Stowington?” Delighted to find Gwynneth in the stall of a dappled-gray mare, Thorne turned the panting filly over to Henry Pitts.
Gwynneth stroked the mare as it nuzzled her other hand. “Only on holiday with my Aunt Evelyn, in Seagrave. She breeds prize steeds.” Gwynneth brushed sugar from her palm. “Tobias kindly gave me a sweet for Abigail here.”
Only then did Thorne see the man crouched behind the mare. No longer a gangly lad of sixteen, Tobias Hobbs had developed a physique to complement the face and seductive charm that even then had won him more than his share of conquests.
“M’lord,” he grunted, with a stiff nod.
“Tobias offered to saddle her and ride with me. He was just looking over her shoes.” Gwynneth glanced from one man to the other. “He said you wouldn’t object.”
“Hobbs,” Thorne said, still eyeing the stable master, “is quite right. I don’t object, on one condition—that I accompany you myself. There are ruts in the road and burrows in the meadow. Exposed roots in the forest.” He narrowed his eyes on Hobbs. “Not to mention the occasional wild beast.”
Hobbs expression turned sullen. He went back to his inspection.
“I’ve a new stallion to try this morn,” Thorne told his guest, “a Darley Arabian named ‘Raven.’ My winnings in a lucky billiard match.”
Alight with excitement, Gwynneth’s heart-shaped face fell. “You wagered for him.”
“I did. And I’ll wager that once you’ve seen him you’ll agree he’s quite a prize.”
Gwynneth elevated her chin. “I daresay, my lord, that when you confess to your priest, he will quite likely instruct you to return your ‘prize’ to its rightful owner.”
“I daresay he would, Miss Stowington. If I had a priest.”
Her mouth opened, then shut without a sound.
Thorne smiled crookedly. “Ride with me,” he said, and saw the pulse quicken in her slender throat. “Let’s see if we can find something redeeming about my heathen soul.”
*
The Heart Denied Page 2
