“That was because Mrs. MacLaren locked all the bedrooms when she left.”
“She what?”
“She locked the doors and took all the keys with her. I had to sleep on the couch in the front parlor, and may I suggest you replace it at the first opportunity? It smells dreadfully of damp.”
Just wait until Miss Peartree smelled Marc. “Has she unlocked them now?”
“Oh, yes. She seems resigned to me being here. If I understand her correctly, she believes if children and dogs like one, then one is worthy.”
Andrew waited to laugh until Miss Peartree left the library. Once he started, he had trouble stopping. He had gone mad, but he feared he was in good company.
Gemma brushed the hair from little Marc’s damp forehead. His temperature was not quite right, but children could quickly spike a fever and return to normal in the blink of an eye. He had eaten well, and now he rested in her Spartan room. She wished she could do the same, but she was a bundle of nerves, startling each time the hail hit the window glass. The ocean roared below, which added to the ominous ambiance of Gull House. During the fourteen days’ hideous weather she’d actually seen—and eaten—fish thrown up to the grass by the force of the waves. Waiting for the Rosses to arrive had been beastly, but she was very much afraid their arrival was even worse.
She could not like Mr. Andrew Ross, which was just as well as he seemed to dislike her. She knew she’d made a very bad first impression. She wasn’t beautiful or elegant or charming like her Italian mother, or as cultured and correct as her Austrian stepfather. And of course, she was absolutely nothing like her English father—that went without saying. If she didn’t know better from her old nursemaid Caterina, she would have believed she’d been switched at birth by gypsies or elves or whichever creatures did such things to innocent babies. She was as good as a changeling, orphaned, homeless, and adrift in the Atlantic.
But she was no longer innocent.
She caught sight of herself in the freckled mirror and rolled her eyes. She was not merely adrift—she had drowned and sunk to the bottom of the sea. If she weren’t such a coward she’d climb down the beach path and plunge in the sea to wash, as young men had done in the frozen Danube in wintertime in Vienna. She shivered just thinking about it. Her stepbrother Franz had been a member of an adventurous outdoor club and had been insufferably smug about his bravery. Girls were not invited.
What she needed was a bath. A hot, hot bath, some scented soap. A hairbrush. A complete change of underthings. She sniffed her armpit. Certainly a new dress. This one would have to be burned. Her trunk had gone missing before boarding the boat that took her island-hopping through the archipelago in a storm-tossed ocean. She’d been promised when it was found it would be sent along, but it had not come today in Mr. Ross’s belongings. It might never come, which meant she’d have to ask the witch to help her again, but that had worked out very badly before.
Of all the bloody luck. She was stuck here, as good as naked, even if Andrew Ross had other ideas. He’d not get rid of her so easily. She had her contract and would abide by every letter. That baron who hired her had not been entirely forthcoming about the hardships of the job, however. The little boy was adorable, but Gemma had pictured a country house set on a rolling green meadow with sheep, perhaps a bit of salt-scented spray in the air, not this violent, volcanic lump. To prove her point, the windows rattled like gunfire in the endless storm.
And then there was Andrew Ross. Handsome as the devil and knew it, too. Not just handsome—dazzling, golden, kissed by the gods.
Well, perhaps not. His wife was dead, his son hated him, his arm flopped about when it wasn’t in its sling, and he’d chosen to bury himself in the outermost reaches of the British Isles. No doubt he had a dark secret, but then didn’t everyone?
“Mamma!” Gemma hurried to Marc’s side. He was thrashing around, still sleeping, a tiny frown on his perfect face. He was the image of his father.
“Shh, my darling. It’s just a bad dream. Gemma’s here.” She stroked his arm and spoke to him in Italian and English, repeating each idea in the other language. It is what her mamma had done for her, to make sure she knew her father’s tongue, even if she didn’t know him.
She knew him now and wished she didn’t. Sighing, Gemma inspected the contents of her dresser. She found a dusty powder puff, two hairpins, and a mostly toothless comb, but as in people, some teeth were better than none. She set about to bring some order to her person, in the very remote chance that Mr. Ross asked her to dine with him. Which she hoped he would not. She’d be better off with the MacLarens in the kitchen, trying to make sense of what they were saying to each other. Who knew? With her facility for languages, she might just add a seventh.
Mrs. MacLaren had set two places in the dining room, so it didn’t seem sporting to request that Miss Peartree take her plate and cutlery and go back into the kitchen. The MacLarens were leaving anyway. True to the little pictures they drew, they were going home through what was now a snowstorm to sleep in their own beds. Andrew hoped they wouldn’t fall into a ditch and freeze to death, for Mrs. MacLaren’s lamb stew smelled delicious and Mr. MacLaren had done a creditable job moving boxes and trunks to where they needed to be unpacked. He wanted them to come back tomorrow and forever. Andrew had many things planned for Mr. MacLaren—planing the front door for example, which continuously blew open unless the heavy hall bench was dragged in front of it. Washing and caulking windows. Climbing up the roof to fix the tiles when he wouldn’t get tossed off in a gale to Ireland. Andrew knew he’d lose Mr. MacLaren in the spring when he went back to fishing. He hoped by then Gull House would be snug and comfortable.
He had his doubts, though. If Miss Peartree were still here, his comfort was bound to be a chancy thing.
She had been in a tizzy to discover Marc would be left alone while they ate their dinner, but it was clear even to her that once he’d eaten his own bowl of stew in the kitchen, he was still too sick and tired to keep his little blue eyes open. He’d fallen asleep on Andrew’s shoulder as he’d carried him up the stairs to Miss Peartree’s room, Miss Peartree trailing a step behind him like a guard dog—some sort of yapping little brown terrier that had been left out in the rain because it rolled in something unpleasant. She had made an effort with her hair, but it was clear to him if he meant to keep her something must be done about her personal hygiene. He’d not have his son cradled in such aromatic arms.
He’d corner Mrs. MacLaren in the kitchen tomorrow morning and beg for some new clothes for the girl. Insist she take a bath, too. Maybe when she smelled sweeter he wouldn’t hold her in such aversion. Of course, her tongue would be just as filthy as ever. But Marc liked her. Hell, loved her. Andrew supposed he could put up with her for a while until he got his feet under himself again and his arm mended.
He looked around the simply furnished dining room. There was a round table and six turned Jacobean chairs, though he doubted he’d ever fill them with company. A nice seascape in desperate need of a cleaning hung over the Delft-tiled fireplace. A small sideboard, a polished brass chandelier—that was it. There was no carpet, no wallpaper. Andrew found the room suited him, although the echo of Miss Peartree’s cutlery was insistent despite her surprisingly ladylike efforts. Her manners were unobjectionable as she dipped her pewter spoon into the white china bowl and fished out carrots and peas and potatoes to chew with her small white teeth.
“Do you not eat meat?”
She swallowed before she answered, another good sign. “Not often.”
“You should. You look like a scarecrow.”
She put her spoon down on the plate with a clank. “You may be my employer, but it does not give you leave to criticize my appearance.”
“It’s not just about your appearance. You’ll need stamina to keep up with Marc. He’s a busy child, into everything when he feels well. In Italy—” He stopped himself. He couldn’t tell her of Marc running in the lush villa gardens chasing orange butterflies.
Or Giulietta tossing a red ball over his head to Andrew as Marc squealed, jumping up and down, his chubby fists reaching up. Or tumbling with his greyhound puppy, letting the dog lick him all over as he wriggled and laughed. Marc’s life had been paradise before Gianni saw fit to end it. Andrew took a sip of wine. There were no palm trees and sultry breezes here, no pretty, light-hearted mother, no ducal father to spoil him. Just Andrew and this ragged little governess.
“I’m sure I can manage,” Miss Peartree said tightly.
“Just managing will not be enough. My son should have the best.”
“Then why did you bring him here? You are the only gentleman on the island.” The way she said it let Andrew know how little she thought of him already, and she knew nothing. “He’ll have naught but the village children to play with. Do you know there is no school here? The parish priest comes but a few times a year. The islanders’ lives are very basic. They steal seabirds’ eggs to eat, for heaven’s sake.”
“How do you know all this when you don’t speak Gaelic?”
“I had fourteen days to occupy myself. I walked about, observed. Not everyone was as mean as Mrs. MacLaren.” She paused. “Some were worse.”
“What did you do to her to put her back up so?”
Miss Peartree’s eyes dropped to her bowl. She appeared to be counting peas and spoke directly to them. “She came into the kitchen when I was bathing on the second day I was here. She—she didn’t understand.”
“Didn’t understand what? That you were dirty after traveling and needed to get clean? You do again, by the way,” he said baldly.
Miss Peartree’s face was very red now. “I know. I’m sorry, but it was too much trouble to go to fill the tub. I ran out of wood—and—and anyway, there was no one to see me. Or smell me. I didn’t know when you were coming.” She shrugged. “I’d hoped to befriend someone in the village to help me before then.”
“Well, you’ll have a bath tomorrow, come hell or high water.”
Miss Peartree lowered her eyes again. “Yes, sir.”
Andrew wondered if he’d heard correctly, but decided not to press her further. He was nearly as worn out as his son. She continued to pick her vegetables out of the stew, but he was pleased to note she allowed one square chunk of lamb to pass her lips.
Her mouth was wide in her elfin face. Now that her hair was combed and pinned, he saw gold threads among the dirty brown in the candlelight. He supposed he shouldn’t be too hard on her. She’d lost her luggage and been alone for two weeks in this nearly empty house. “So, tell me what else you’ve learned about the island,” he said, hoping to pass the time until he could fall dead asleep in his own bed instead of at the supper table.
That had been a near thing. Gemma thought for sure Mr. Ross would inquire more closely about her disagreement with Mrs. MacLaren. Thank the Lord he had not. For how could she tell him Mrs. MacLaren had caught her touching herself down there, her other hand cupped on her tiny breast flicking a flat brown nipple? She had been incredibly wicked for daytime but had needed release so badly. The past few months had been an absolute horror, and this new job looked to be no better. She had just wanted to unwind the spring that was so tight within her that even her hair hurt.
That day she thought she had the house to herself. Mrs. MacLaren had helped with the bath and then gone back down to the village to borrow fresh clothes for her. Gemma lost all sense of time in the cooling water as she kneaded and stroked with rigorous precision. She had been in the midst of a particularly fine peak and panting accordingly when Mrs. MacLaren discovered her abandon.
It would be hard to say who had been more shocked, but Mrs. MacLaren definitely had the last word, screeching at her, making numerous signs of the cross, and tearing upstairs to lock Gemma out from finding similar bliss on any bed. Needless to say, the housekeeper took the parcel of clean clothes and keys back home. At this point, Gemma’s own brown traveling dress could stand up without her.
Gemma didn’t think Mrs. MacLaren had told anyone about her sinful ways. While the villagers had been suspicious of her, they hadn’t looked at her with the same degree of disgust that the older woman had. Maybe by now the housekeeper had convinced herself that Gemma was washing herself the English way.
She tugged off her dress and unrolled her dingy stockings. She had nothing but her shift to sleep in, and not nearly enough blankets. Gemma stirred at the coals and added another brick of peat. At least for tonight she would be toasty warm. She was looking forward to snuggling with Marc and welcomed his body heat. It had been a long while since she’d shared a bed with anyone, and then it had not been anyone as innocent as Andrew Ross’s little son.
Gemma blew out the candle and crawled into bed. She pulled the child to her chest and said her prayers. Tomorrow she would have a bath, and that was nearly as good as being delivered from evil.
CHAPTER 3
He woke up to a bloody miracle. No, Miss Peartree was right. He’d have to edit himself if he wished Marc not to repeat phrases that were unsuitable for the only gentleman’s son living on the island. It was a blessed miracle. The sun seemed to be shining, although the gusts were as fierce as ever, billowing the faded curtains even though the windows were closed. Andrew had lain awake most of the night despite his exhaustion, listening to the booming ocean below and the howling wind. He’d better get used to the sounds, for they were all he was apt to hear for the foreseeable future.
He’d discovered some ledgers in the desk yesterday afternoon and had pieced together a sketchy history of his new house. It was more than fifty years old, built on this spit of land for an English gentleman whose interest in ornithology might have been considered excessive, perhaps even unhinged. List upon list of the number of kittiwakes, shags, puffins, guillemots, razorbills, and other seabirds the man observed every spring and summer was rather mind-boggling. There were meticulous pencil sketches in one notebook that were fine enough to frame. But the Englishman had the good sense to leave the island every fall, so who was to say who was unhinged? It was only early December, and already Andrew felt a chill to his bones that seemed permanent.
Andrew reluctantly left the warmth of his covers and went to the window. Scattered diamonds of frost littered the machair on the beach below. The whitecaps were fierce but compelling. He sat in the deep window seat and placed his left hand on the glass. So cold. Too cold for a tramp out of doors, but who knew when the sun would shine again? He was lord of his manor now, should pace his boundaries and look for his ruins.
He was hungry. Judging from the pale yellow sun in the sky, it might be closer to lunch time than breakfast. He’d dress and eat and go for his walk. Exercise his arm as he was supposed to do, squeezing and unsqueezing the hard ball that the doctor he’d consulted in Paris had given him. Andrew had once been fond of exercise—boxing, fencing, and riding—it had kept his instrument in perfect tune. His body had been his fortune. Even if those days were over, there was no reason to let his fitness lapse.
He washed and fumbled with his clothing, cursing the buttons. The house seemed still, thank goodness. No caterwauling child or banging of pot tops. No arguing shrew. Perhaps they’d all taken advantage of the break in the weather and gone off to the village. Andrew hoped something had been left for him in the kitchen to eat. He took the back stairs and pushed the door open.
Steam was rising from an enamel tub, as was Miss Peartree. She had been reaching for a towel draped on a kitchen chair, but at the sight of Andrew had paused for one fatal second. Her wet hair was slicked back from her scrubbed little face and snaked past her waist to rest on her pert backside. Her skin was the color of coffee with far too much cream added, her nipples large and flat and brown, her breasts just the slightest swell over her rib cage. His eyes fixed upon her thatch of curls, mink-brown over slender thighs. She looked like a woodland nymph. A clean woodland nymph.
“Not bloody again!”
She clasped her arms around her body. She didn’t have quite enough hands to c
over herself, not that there was an extra ounce of flesh on her. Andrew stepped forward and handed her the towel. She hastily wrapped it around herself, missing one breast entirely.
Andrew had been mistaken yesterday. What little she had under her clothes was strangely, sinfully appealing. He felt a tug to his groin, which startled him. He hadn’t felt real desire in years.
“How dare you?”
She blinked. Her eyelashes were wet. Spiky, tangled. Andrew blinked back but couldn’t move any other part of him.
“Don’t just stand there! Go away! Go away!” she screamed.
Andrew woke from his trance. What was wrong with him? His feet seemed glued to the floor. He couldn’t even find his tongue to say he was sorry.
Because he wasn’t sorry. Not one bit.
But he did go away, without breakfast. Without a taste of what seemed like the most delicious skin he’d ever seen.
She was so tiny. Everywhere. Almost childlike. He’d never had a sexual interest in children as so many satyrs did. As Donal did. But she was no child. He wondered just how old she was. Twenty? Twenty-five? His hand went to his cock to adjust himself in his breeches. He was rock-hard and nearly in pain. What sort of cosmic joke was being played upon him now? Had he not been punished enough?
Evidently not.
He imagined those perfectly formed legs locked around his hips. He imagined his lips suckling on the cocoa disks of her nipples, teasing them to fullness. He imagined her long lashes fluttering on her cheeks, her wide mouth open in ecstasy as he drove into her.
And he would be alone with her in this house every night, his sleeping son the only chaperone.
God help him. She had to go.
A blast of wind nearly knocked him over. He’d come to the point overlooking where the Sea of Hebrides met the Atlantic. Waves slapped together, sending spray high into the sky. A collision of forces too elemental to ignore. If he were at all fanciful, it resembled what would happen if he and the diminutive yet delectable Miss Peartree ever united in his bed.
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