Lady Lost

by Jane Goodger

  They stood watching Mabel skip down the beach, and Marcus had the distinctly uncomfortable feeling that the earth’s axis had shifted subtly, lifting him out of his perpetually black mood. It was difficult to scowl watching the girl and standing next to a woman as lovely as Lady Lilian. Her hair, never fully tamed, whipped about her head in the wind, the strands seemingly participating in a wild dance. No matter how many times she pulled it back in an attempt to refasten it to the loose bun at the back of her head, strands continued to break free, and he was tempted to try to tame one particular strand that kept brushing her pink lips. Every time it sprang loose from its anchor, his eyes were drawn to the soft pillow of her lower lip, and no matter how many times he told himself to stop looking, it seemed he could not. She stood not three feet away, watching Mabel as she ran from one shell to the next, gathering them in her pockets. While she watched Mabel, he watched her and wondered what madness was taking him over. Tonight, the house would be empty, or nearly so. Tonight he could relax. Tonight, perhaps, his dreams would not be filled with tantalizing images of her. He really should never have looked at her in her bath, for now he was tortured by the memory.

  Without realizing what he was doing, he took a step closer and lifted his hand. It seemed to happen slowly, as if he were moving in some sort of thick molasses that prevented normal movements. He lifted his hand and touched that strand of hair, the one brushing against her lips, and allowed himself to graze that soft, soft skin. She inhaled sharply and turned her gaze to him, a question in her eyes that seemed to say, Are you going to kiss me?

  “Lady Lilian, I should very much like to . . .” Kiss you. Everywhere. Hold you against me, feel your heat around me, press myself inside you. Make you cry out in ecstasy. “. . . correspond with you after you leave.” He closed his eyes briefly, allowing that idiotic sentence to settle in before he stepped back and forced himself to look out at the sea.

  “Of course.” She cleared her throat. “I don’t have many people to write to, and I would be happy to exchange letters with you. Perhaps when you are back home, you can visit.”

  No. He would not. For if he visited, he would begin courting her, and if he began courting her, inevitably he would have to ask her to marry him, and he’d decided that one terrible marriage was enough. He planned to find a like-minded widow, someone he would not fall in love with. Someone who didn’t hold enough power over him to destroy his life, to humiliate him beyond reason. If he ever did marry, it would be to a quiet mouse of a woman who was content to stay at home and read. Or knit. Not one who was young and beautiful and who would cause men’s heads to turn the moment she walked in the room. Not one who would cause his heart to ache every time he looked at her or make him think of murder if someone dared touch her.

  “This is my home,” he said finally, meaning every syllable. He did not want to return to his boyhood home, nor his townhouse in London. At least not for a long while.

  She looked away. “I expect I shall be quite busy setting up my house. Perhaps I’ll find a lovely cottage in Whitby. I’ve heard it’s a charming village.” He knew she was teasing him, but he wasn’t particularly amused. And she could tell, for she laughed. “Have no fear, sir. Once I have removed myself from Yorkshire, I daresay I will never return. Not even to visit a brooding lord living in a haunted house.”

  “I am not brooding.” She raised one eyebrow as if challenging his assessment of himself. “Do you truly think I am brooding?”

  “Most darkly.”

  “Hmm. Perhaps I am brooding.” He took a deep, bracing breath. “Though it is difficult to remain disagreeable on such a pretty day so I will endeavor to lighten the mood. Have you ever waded in the sea, my lady?”

  * * *

  “No,” Lilian said cautiously, thinking he might be planning to throw her into the water. For a few wonderfully tense moments, she’d actually thought he was going to kiss her, and she idly wondered what she would have done. Kiss him back, no doubt. Perhaps it was just her imagination or wishful thinking. Really, he was more likely to throw her into the sea than kiss her, though she very much doubted he would do either. If he were to do so, she’d have to remain at Merdunoir until her dress dried and she knew that would not go well with him. For some reason, the thought of staying one more day was a rather happy one. She was so dreading going back to Mount Carlyle and her sister.

  He surprised her by shucking off his boots and stockings and rolling up his pants. “Come on,” he called, already jogging to the water’s edge, a boyish grin on his face. Suddenly, he was no brooding lord, but a stunningly handsome young man with a penchant for mischief. She knew instinctively that this was a rare thing indeed, for him to actually play, so she bent down and removed her, or rather his, warm stockings and followed him, stopping just at the edge of where the waves sank into the sand. The sand beneath her feet was cold and she curled her toes into it, laughing at how the sand began to swallow up her entire foot.

  “You’d better lift your skirt, madam, or else your dress will get soaked. I promise not to look at your pretty ankles.”

  She made a face at him, but relented, lifting up the material just high enough so her hem would remain dry.

  “Very pretty indeed,” Granton said, leaning back so he might get a better view of her ankles. What a flirt. Lilian had never given that part of her body much thought, and couldn’t imagine what a man would find fascinating about ankles. She ignored him and took a tentative step into the icy water.

  “Oh, it’s so cold.”

  “It’s quite warm, actually. You get used to it. My brothers and I used to swim here in early June and come out with blue lips every time.”

  “Yes, that does seem appealing.”

  He chuckled before bending down and picking something up from the surf. “Look here,” he said, showing her a small porcelain bird. It was hopelessly chipped and missing its tail, but it had once been a darling little piece and somehow held even more charm having survived the sea.

  “My gift to you, my lady,” he said, bowing formally.

  “I daren’t accept such a gift from a gentleman to whom I have not been properly introduced,” Lilian said, playing along.

  “Very well.” He turned and drew his arm back as if to throw the bird back into the sea.

  “Don’t you dare,” she shouted, grabbing hold of his arm. She looked up to find him grinning down at her, and she had that wonderful feeling again in the pit of her stomach. He is going to kiss me. He is.

  His smile slowly faded and Lilian found herself inexorably drawn closer to him. She swallowed thickly and her eyes fluttered closed. And then she felt something hard and cold pressed into her hand, and she opened her eyes to find the little bird in her palm and Granton standing straight, gazing out to the sea.

  She closed her eyes briefly again, this time in humiliation. She’d thought she was fairly good at reading whether a man wanted to kiss her or not, but Granton did not look like a man who was tortured with longing. He looked annoyed, and Lilian had to stop herself from apologizing. What would she say? Sorry I desperately wanted you to kiss me? He wanted to correspond with her, not kiss her. She could feel her cheeks heating with embarrassment.

  “It’s just as well you are leaving today,” he said, drawing her from her self-flagellation. He continued to look at the horizon. “I don’t think I could resist kissing you if you were to stay.”

  Lilian immediately pressed her lips together to stop them from blossoming into a full smile. “Oh,” she managed after a time. “Perhaps you may kiss me good-bye.”

  He turned his head sharply to look at her and gave her a grim smile. “I plan to be out riding when you depart, my lady.”

  Just as well. It would have only made leaving more difficult, but at least she would have had the memory of his kiss. She cleared her throat. “You don’t really want to correspond with me, do you?”

  He shook his head, his brown-gold eyes steady on hers. “No. I don’t.” Then he smiled and her heart did a
little flip. “But I shall.”

  “Perhaps I will not write back,” she said saucily, but ended up grinning back at him. “Thank you for the gift.” Still smiling softly, she looked down at the small blue porcelain bird sans tail feathers, poor thing. She knew, even years from now, she would look at that bird and remember Merdunoir and Mabel and standing in the cold water of the North Sea beside Lord Granton. At that moment, a larger wave hit them, and wet the bottom of her skirt, breaking the spell. She let out a small shriek and ran from the water, shaking out her skirts.

  “It’s not completely ruined, my lord,” she called out. “It should only take a day or so to dry.”

  He let out a small laugh and joined her on the beach, then called out for Mabel, who had gotten quite a distance away from them. Mabel lifted her head and immediately started running toward them, and even from a distance, it was easy to tell her pockets were stuffed full of shells.

  “Did you find a lot of treasure?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said, out of breath. “All sorts of shells. And pretty rocks. And a tooth.” She held it up for him to see.

  “A tooth?” Granton asked, bending down so he could see what was clearly a large shark’s tooth. “Are you certain that’s not your tooth?” He peered into her mouth as if it might have fallen from it. Mabel giggled and put the tooth back into her skirts.

  Lilian looked up the steps, which seemed rather daunting now that they were on the beach.

  “Can you make it up the steps, my lady?” he asked, obviously seeing her reticence.

  “Sir, I practically walked here from London. I most certainly can manage a short set of stairs.”

  “Let’s race, then. From here to the front door.”

  He’d surprised her again. It was such a silly thing for a serious-minded man to propose, and it was for that reason Lilian found she couldn’t resist. This man who had not been allowed to play when he was a boy would be allowed now, if she had any say. “All right, but you should make some accommodation for my skirts. And what about Mabel?”

  “I’ll carry her. That will be my handicap. I shall even give you a head start. I won’t start running until you reach the bottom step.”

  Lilian eyed the distance between them and the first step. His legs were long and he would no doubt be able to take two steps at a time, but she was nimble and young. “All right.” And then, without another word, she took off, laughing as she ran. The minute her foot hit the step, she realized she’d forgotten her stockings, and so she called back, already out of breath, for Granton to pick them up.

  “I already have them,” he called, far closer than she would have imagined, and she let out another laughing squeal as she picked up her skirts a bit and ran up the steps as quickly as she could. She could hear him pounding up the steps right behind her as Mabel urged him on, the little traitor.

  “You’ve lovely ankles,” he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. Letting out a small growl of mock anger, she was tempted to let her skirts drop and allow him to win. Instead, grinning, she picked up her pace. When Lilian reached the soft grass, she sprinted forward toward the house and the front entrance. The drive was gravel and the stones were sharp beneath her feet, but Lilian didn’t care. She hadn’t had such fun in years. He was right behind her now, seemingly jogging easily while her lungs were about to burst and her legs to give out.

  “Give up?” he called.

  “Never!”

  She rounded the corner of the house and threw herself up the steps, barely getting through the threshold before he tumbled in behind her, both laughing and out of breath.

  Lilian was still laughing, still trying to catch her breath, when she looked up and into three pairs of horrified eyes. Next to her, Granton had gone abruptly silent and still.

  “Mother, this is unexpected,” he said.

  Chapter 10

  “What is the meaning of this?” His mother stood stone-faced and stared at her oldest son before moving her cold eyes first to Mabel and then, scathingly, to Lilian. Beside her stood his brother, Adam, and his sister-in-law, Georgette, who both looked as shocked as his mother. He wondered sardonically if it was because he was dressed so casually or that he actually seemed to be enjoying himself for the first time in memory.

  Marcus set Mabel down, and the little girl immediately grasped his hand, as if she were comforting him and not the other way around, so he gave her hand a little squeeze of reassurance. I’m fine. “Mother, I was not expecting you. Obviously. May I please introduce—”

  His mother took a sharp gasp. “You may not,” she said. “How could you think to introduce such a woman to me?” She looked at Adam and Georgette, who remained mute, apparently as stunned as his mother. Marcus could feel himself heat from anger but took a calming breath.

  “This woman, Mother, is Lady Lilian Martin.”

  Once this information settled into his mother’s rattled brain, she grew quite pale and actually staggered back a step.

  “I do believe she might faint,” Adam said, moving behind his mother apparently to catch her fall.

  “I am not going to faint,” she said testily. “But this is perhaps the most shocking news of all. Not only are you here with a woman when we all thought you were despondent and alone in your misery, but we find you are cohabiting with a murderess.”

  Lady Lilian let out a sound and looked ready to defend herself, but Marcus held out a hand, forestalling her. The last thing he needed at the moment was his mother and Lady Lilian arguing.

  “She is innocent and you know it, Mother. And we are not cohabiting. The story of why she is here can wait, but please be assured that nothing untoward has occurred.”

  Lucille’s mouth was set, her hands in front of her clenching her reticule tightly, as if she could hardly contain her anger. “Nothing untoward? You cannot be so obtuse as not to recognize the full implications of—” She stopped abruptly and pointed a finger at Mabel, who still clutched his hand. “What is that?” his mother asked.

  Marcus looked down at the wind-mussed head of Mabel and was about to dismiss his mother’s question, when the little mite looked up at him, her hazel eyes wide and trusting. Bloody hell, he was going to regret this, he was certain. “She is my daughter.”

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Lady Lilian turn her head and smile. “Don’t,” he snapped, but the lady kept smiling at him anyway. He couldn’t help but notice Georgette and Adam exchange curious glances. Suddenly, Marcus wanted to scream for them all to leave. What were they doing here, invading his privacy, disturbing the one time he’d felt happy in memory? “Mabel, you should curtsy when you are introduced. You practiced that, did you not, with Lady Lilian?”

  Mabel nodded and dropped his hand, then stepped up and curtsied rather inexpertly to his mother, who looked down at the little girl with clear distaste.

  “You would introduce me to your bast—”

  Marcus felt a surge of rage, one that must have immediately shown, for his mother stopped talking midword, apparently rather terrified by the look of pure fury in his eyes. “Lady Lilian,” he said with measured calmness, trying to ignore the way her eyes smiled at him, “would you mind taking Mabel to the nursery? I shall be up once I have spoken with my mother.” Lady Lilian held out her hand to Mabel and gave Marcus a grateful look, no doubt wishing she could run from the room. Marcus wished he could leave as well instead of dealing with his relatives.

  “Shall we go into my study? I can expound on my current situation much more comfortably from there.” As they walked to his study, Marcus spied a maid and called her over. “Will you please tell Sadie that I need two more rooms made up and to expect three guests for dinner?” God above knew he hated saying those words, but he could hardly throw his relatives out after they’d traveled so far.

  “Yes, sir,” the maid said, bobbing a curtsy.

  “Why are your servants not in uniform?” Lucille asked.

  “Because I didn’t want servants permanently and didn’t see a re
ason for the expense,” Marcus responded impatiently, almost angrily.

  “Do not use that tone with me. It matters not that you are a grown man. Certainly you can understand a mother’s concern for her son. Not only had you disappeared for months without a word, not one single word, but when I do find you, you are frolicking about with a woman and holding a strange child in your arms. What mother wouldn’t be concerned? I asked only why your servants don’t have uniforms.”

  “I apologize for my tone, Mother.”

  Mollified, she continued walking, and Marcus followed, trailed by his brother and sister-in-law. A deep sense of dread filled him as he walked into the room where, as a boy, he’d spent so many long hours with his father learning how to manage their estates. When they were all seated, Marcus calmly explained who Mabel was, how Lady Lilian had ended up in his home, and that she was leaving, unscathed, to return to her sister.

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Adam said.

  “What do you mean?”

  Adam nearly squirmed beneath his brother’s hard gaze. “It’s not a secret that you have a woman here. We were only in Whitby for a few hours and we started hearing things about how you were keeping a woman at Merdunoir. They know her name, Marcus, if not her lineage. But it will only be a matter of time before it reaches London, and then she’ll be ruined.”

  “She’s already ruined,” Marcus said coldly. He knew what his brother was hinting at and he wanted none of it.

  “She is the daughter of an earl, Marcus, not some commoner we can pay off. Oh, my God, he must marry the girl,” his mother said, clearly horrified by the idea. “My son will be married to an accused murderess.” She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at the real tears forming in her eyes. Marcus loved his mother and didn’t want to upset her, but he was not marrying anyone.

  “The murderer confessed and killed himself,” he said reasonably