The Saint

by Madeline Hunter

  “I hardly think thrown myself is a fair way to put it.”

  “—thrown yourself at Dante, I would not have found myself in the contradictory situation of trying to negotiate your way out of a marriage that could only benefit me.”

  “Why did you, then?”

  The look he gave her knocked the breath right out of her. You know why, those eyes said.

  “It has never been my intention to trap you into something that you did not want.”

  They were speeding past farms clouded in mist, leaving the city far behind. Potentially perilous did not begin to describe her situation. But this was Vergil Duclairc. A saint. Besides, he would hardly importune her when his mistress resided in the house.

  “Morton obviously knows who Mr. Clark is. Does anyone else?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “No one? Penelope or Dante?”

  “No.”

  “Fleur?”

  “Least of all Fleur.”

  “You will have to tell her. A man can hardly hide such a thing from a wife any more than he can from his valet.”

  “Fleur and I will not be getting married. She has no interest in it. Our courtship has been a feint to remove her from the marriage market for a while. I expect in a month all of society will know that she broke it off.”

  “I am sorry. I would never have expected her to deceive you.”

  “You misunderstand. I knew from the start. So you can acquit me of at least one crime. I did not make love to you even while I courted a fiancée.”

  She could do without him blithely repeating references to that. “It is odd no one ever found you out.”

  “The ease of the deception surprised me at first. But Mr. Clark keeps to himself mostly, and lives out of town. Refuse social invitations often enough and eventually they stop coming. I am not unknown in Manchester, especially among the other men of business, but I avoid gatherings where I will not know who will attend. Of course, the haute ton do not mix with mill owners, and the city has no representation in Parliament, so there were no members of the Commons about who would recognize me.”

  “Maintaining a double life must be very difficult and uncomfortable. I do not understand why you have done this. Why not be open about it?”

  “Surely your perceptions are more astute than that. Gentlemen do not engage in trade, least of all this one. We invest in certain ones, shipping and canals, but the mills are too sordid. And we never actively manage those businesses.”

  She remembered Mr. Peterson speaking of mill owners as beneath him, and Lord Calne calling their owners base. It would probably be very scandalous for a viscount to take his place among such men. Scandalous enough to ruin the social standing of his whole family.

  Dusk was falling when the coach lumbered off the main road. They slowed as they passed some farms.

  “Are these yours?”

  “They are attached to the manor but are mortgaged to the hilt.”

  “Is Laclere Park mortgaged too?”

  “The estate is entailed to prevent that, not that I would have ever done so anyway. A man does not gamble with his family’s patrimony.”

  She kept her gaze out the window, looking for signs of a village. With an inn.

  Morton took a turn and they trotted up a hill. An old Tudor manor stood at its top. In the waning light she made out a rambling collection of half-timbered beams crossing plastered walls that rose up from a stone first level.

  Vergil hopped out as soon as they pulled up in front of the house. Not a single light shown through any window. The place possessed an eerie mood. It looked like the sort of manor one read about in the more fantastic stories. The sort where young innocents came to no good.

  Vergil waited as if he knew that, whatever her misgivings, she would conclude that she really did not have any choice except to go in.

  She fought her way through the swaddling coat and rug only to remember that her shoes were off. He fished for them, slipped them on, and buckled them as if she were incapable of dressing herself properly.

  An old man led the coach away and Morton hurried inside ahead of them.

  “It looks deserted,” she said as Vergil took her arm to support her under the weight of the clumsy coat.

  “I do not keep staff here, except for old Lucas to tend the horses and serve as caretaker. When I am in residence, Morton does for me. He was army in his younger days, and is amazingly competent even in a kitchen.”

  No servants. She glanced askance at him. In the dusk his expression appeared dangerously alert.

  The large, square entry hall held a hearth and chairs and settee. Old armor glimmered in the corners and an ancient tapestry hung on the wall leading up the stairs. Overhead one could see the beams that supported the second floor. Everything appeared in decent, if worn, condition. All this dark wood could use a good polishing, but Morton had managed to keep things clean.

  Morton moved two chairs near the fire he had built. She swayed under the great coat while she walked around and peered through open doors into the rooms giving off from the hall. There was a library at one end and a proper drawing room at the other end beside a dining salon.

  Vergil watched her inspection. “Are you looking for my mistress? I keep her chained up in the attic. Morton, don’t forget to bring my love slave her supper.”

  “That is not humorous, Laclere.”

  “She thinks that I am making jests, Morton. The thing is, that wench upstairs begins to bore me. Perhaps I will send her home and keep Miss Kenwood to take her place. What do you think, Morton?”

  “A bit sharp-tongued, my lord, but a comely young woman.”

  “The luck of it is, no one will ever know. No doubt you will find it difficult to believe that any woman could be so foolish, Morton, but she snuck away from Pen and Dante and came north all on her own. Told no one where she was going. Left herself with no protection whatsoever. If she disappears, who is to say what happened? All sorts of accidents and mishaps could have occurred on this adventure. They won’t even know where to begin looking for her.”

  “You astonish me, Laclere. This is very vulgar, and not at all like you,” Bianca said.

  “It is not the Viscount Laclere who contemplates your future. It is Mr. Clark. It is said that he is a strange man, not much given to society and friendships. Whoever would have expected an intelligent woman like yourself to put herself in the power of a man whom she knows nothing about? Yes, Morton, I think that she will do very well. She will need a bit of taming, of course.”

  “I hope that you are both enjoying yourselves. The potential danger in what I have done has been amply communicated. I am not amused by your insinuations, Laclere, nor the least bit frightened.”

  “Aren’t you? You have more faith in my honor than I do, then.”

  He said the last in a thoughtful, musing tone. The rest had been a teasing scold, but that had not.

  The silence of the manor suddenly pressed on her.

  He stepped behind her. His hands settled on her shoulders and the skin from her neck to her waist prickled. His touch briefly lingered before he lifted the coat off her shoulders. “Go sit by the fire and get warm. Morton, would you prepare a hot bath for Miss Kenwood? It will be the only way to get the chill out of her. See about some other garments too. Her gown is holding the damp.”

  “No things here but yours and mine, my lord.”

  “Something of mine, then. Miss Kenwood is no stranger to breeches. And do whatever one does to prepare a chamber for a lady. It will have to be mine. None of the others are suitable.”

  His last order made her trip on her way to the hearth. He certainly did not expect her to remain here tonight, in his chamber.

  She sat and unfastened the neck of her cloak.

  He threw himself into another chair nearby. “You are warm enough? Morton will fix supper soon, but I could find something if you are hungry.”

  “I will wait.” She pulled off her gloves and smoothed them together on her la
p. “There is no mistress, is there? All of the journeys were because of the mill.”

  He just looked at her in that considering way he had used in the coach. Finally he shook his head with an exasperated sigh. “What am I going to do with you?”

  “The first thing you are going to do, is instruct Morton to drive me to an inn.”

  “I do not think so. Rain is falling, there is no moon, and the closest inn is miles away.”

  “I hardly need to remind you that it is unacceptable for me to remain in this house tonight. There are not even any servants here.”

  “Which means no one will ever know. Now, if you were some blushing innocent, I might be concerned for your delicate sensibilities. However, since you are so experienced, wicked, and, some in Baltimore even say, dangerous, we can dispense with inconvenient gallantry. I will not risk either Morton or my horses to cater to any concerns about propriety that you have suddenly discovered this evening. Besides, a woman who admits to having hundreds of lovers can hardly be reduced to the vapors by the notion of being alone with a man for a few days.”

  “A few days?”

  “I cannot let you leave until we have come to some understanding.”

  “That should not take long at all. I promise to tell no one about your secret. See? All settled.”

  “Hardly all settled, as you and I both know.”

  His meaningful glance stunned her into silence. He was not only talking about his management of the mill.

  The hall grew very quiet. His implications hung in the air, filling the gap between them with connections and memories, forcing the attraction to quiver more insistently than it ever had before.

  The fire crackled, illuminating the two of them in a cozy glow. It created a little world of protection and warmth in the cold cavern of the hall. No, it was not the fire doing that. It was the presence of the man sitting a few feet away. She had always experienced an alluring security with him. Especially when he held her. He offered for a short while, just a little, that she could let someone else make the decisions and do the worrying. Not since she had been a young child had she been allowed that respite.

  She nervously smoothed her gloves some more. She felt as though his silent contemplation was deliberately stripping away layers of camouflage, revealing something carefully hidden behind anger and resentment and clever sparring. It was leaving her terribly exposed to an intimacy that spread like the fire’s warmth, circling their chairs, subjugating the adversarial postures they took with each other as surely as the hearth did the chill.

  Did he sense it too? She snuck a look at him. He gazed into the fire with a face subtly expressive, its stern planes reflecting annoyance, but also something else. It was as if a transparent mask had been removed.

  He turned to her. His eyes glimmered with anger and warmth and a flicker of vulnerability. Not a guardian’s eyes. Not a saint’s, either. Just a man’s. The man who had kissed her at the ruins and held her in the study. Every piece of her remaining armor dropped and every ounce of defense disappeared under the honesty of that gaze.

  “You might have been harmed. If that coach had gone into a river, I would have never known what happened, just that you disappeared one day,” he said resentfully.

  It was the first indication, the first admission, that he cared about her.

  “Is that why you are so angry? I thought it was because I had discovered your secret.”

  “Give me some time and I will work up some ire over that too.”

  “I should have been more considerate of the worry I might have caused Pen and you. I am sorry. It’s just . . .” To explain it would leave her even more vulnerable to the seductive familiarity she suddenly felt with him. In an indefinable way, she understood him much better than she had ever realized. In front of this hearth, with her protections peeled away and his mask shattered, she knew the important part of him as well as she knew herself.

  “It’s just that you saw a way around your interfering guardian and back to the pursuit of your dream,” he finished.

  “Yes. There was that.”

  “It’s just that you saw a way to escape the hypocrite and fraud who forced his attentions on you when he was supposed to be protecting you.” He voiced her thoughts in a frank way that suggested he intended to clear the air. “Perhaps that is why I am so angry. It is really directed at myself, and it is unfair to lash out at you instead. I cannot escape the conclusion that if anything had happened to you, it would have been my fault.”

  “Not entirely. Nor did you really force your attentions on me. I have never lied to myself about that. But, as I said in the study, I decided it best if I left.”

  “As any sensible woman would have. Now you have discovered that your brave plan has only led you directly back to me. You must be dismayed.”

  “Not so dismayed. Better you than Mr. Clark, whom people say is a bit odd.”

  He laughed quietly at that. “So you came to Manchester to chat with Mr. Clark. Did you plan to threaten him?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Negotiate, then, if you prefer that term. Let me guess. You would promise not to sell the mill when you came of age if he gave you some money. The implication being that if he did not hand over the blunt, you would promptly throw in with Nigel once you turned twenty-one and sell out. Am I correct?”

  “You do not have to make it sound like highway robbery. The money I wanted was mine anyway. Some of the profits, to be diverted to me and not sent to . . .”

  “To your unreasonable guardian. Your solicitor did well by you, getting the information you needed. A brilliant plan, Miss Kenwood. You have my admiration.”

  “Would it have worked? I mean, if you hadn’t been Mr. Clark, that is.”

  He smiled with stunning warmth. “It is charming of you to think that it makes a difference that I am he. You have me at a distinct disadvantage. I do not hurt myself by pointing it out, since it was only a matter of time before you realized it.”

  She had already realized it, as soon as she saw him in the office.

  “Once you procured your funds from Mr. Clark, what then? Off to Italy, I expect. Immediately? With no baggage and no Jane?”

  “I had intended to go back to Laclere Park, to fetch Jane.”

  “I suppose you would have had to leave without saying so. A letter propped on your writing table for Penelope is the best I could have hoped for.” He pressed the fingertips of his hands to each other and studied her over the peak they made. “I am a little insulted at how this plan of yours did not take me into account at all.”

  “It certainly did not take into account that you might be Mr. Clark.”

  “I do not mean that. Perhaps I foresaw your scheme. Maybe I fed Mr. Peterson the information in order to lure you up here. Has it not yet occurred to you that the man whom you castigated in the coach that day might be that nefarious? Perhaps you do not think me clever enough to have plotted it.”

  It had occurred to her, poking into her mind with a momentary, silly caution. “Clever enough, but not nefarious enough.”

  Her judgment seemed to please him. “If this had played out as you intended, what did you expect me to do?”

  “I expected you to be relieved, and to recognize it was for the best.”

  “Of course. The saint could return to his courtship of the lovely Fleur, and the fraud could return to debauchery with his mistress. A comfortable life again, with the troublesome, provoking Miss Kenwood out of the way.”

  “Something like that.”

  He angled toward her. “Shall I tell you that I anticipated some new attempt on your part to leave? I even warned Catalani of dire consequences if she should aid you. I have St. John checking the passenger lists at the shipping companies to see if you tried to arrange for berths.”

  “I planned to take the packet to France and travel overland, so you would not have been able to stop me that way.”

  “Then I would have followed.”

  “I see. You wo
uld not have wanted the mill’s future depending upon someone you could not control, and you still had nine months to convince me to wed your brother.”

  He looked to the fire with renewed irritation. “Fetching you back would have had nothing to do with Dante, and very little to do with the mill. Furthermore, my legal rights as your guardian would have only provided the excuse.”

  His words and expression insinuated more than responsibilities and manipulations, although he appeared less than happy with the notion. The new Bianca flushed with delight at this evidence that she had been right about him and the old Bianca wrong.

  A cough drew their attention to Morton on the landing halfway up the stairs, holding a candelabra.

  “I have the chamber and bath prepared, my lord. If Miss Kenwood is ready, I will show her the way.” He turned and retreated upward.

  She rose and Vergil did too. She regretted having to relinquish the fresh honesty that had begun between them. They would probably resume to their old poses when she returned.

  She mounted the stairs, sensing his attention on her. At the landing she glanced down to see him watching her.

  “No.”

  She paused at the simple negative, even though it had not been a command for her to stop.

  “No,” he repeated. “To your question earlier. You were correct. There is no mistress. No mistress and no fiancée.” He paused. “There is only you.”

  She thought that her legs would give way. The new Bianca wanted to climb over the banister and jump down into his arms.

  “Since we are being honest, I should admit that you were correct too. There were not hundreds, or even dozens. Not even several, I’m bound to say. Only you.”

  He turned away with a wry smile. “Go to your bath, Miss Kenwood. Since I had intended to seduce you, I will need some time to decide if I am glad to hear that.”