Читать книгу A Scoundrel By Moonlight - Anna Campbell - Страница 11

Lord Leath’s return soon had Nell seething with frustration. Until now, she’d found Alloway Chase a surprisingly congenial location. Perhaps because unlike Mearsall’s schoolhouse, there was no silent, reproachful ghost reminding her that she’d failed to watch over her half sister. Her stepfather had seen her unhappiness and hadn’t discouraged her when she’d suggested finding work away from home. He’d have been appalled if she’d told him why she really left Mearsall.

Under the marchioness’s relaxed supervision, she’d found ample opportunity to seek the diary. So far she’d concentrated on the library. It was a huge collection, but she had time and patience. Or at least she’d had both until the marquess started working there. And after their early hours encounter, she hadn’t worked up the courage to wander the house at night again.

Now he’d brought a secretary from London. Even when his lordship was absent, Mr. Crane occupied either the library or the small adjoining room. A room he locked every evening.

As subtly as she could, Nell had quizzed the other servants about the marquess. Some of the maids had hair-raising stories about lecherous employers in other households, but nobody had a bad word to say about Leath. She’d failed too in all attempts to obtain evidence of his lechery from women living on the estate.

It was decidedly annoying. And a little unsettling. Nell had imagined that the people who knew him best would despise him for the monster he was.

His lordship had been home nearly a fortnight and he was yet to spend a night away from the house. For a heartless seducer, he was a diligent worker. Reams of correspondence came in and out, and he also paid conscientious attention to the estate.

Clearly his licentious impulses were under control. So far, she’d only seen him behave inappropriately with one woman. When he’d caught Nell Trim about the waist that first night. When he’d spoken to her as his equal. And more, the shameful awareness that hummed endlessly between them.

When they were together, dislike set the air sizzling. It must be dislike. She refused to admit that she found the man who had ruined her half sister attractive.

His lordship’s presence was impossible to ignore. The air buzzed with energy, the staff were on extra alert, the marchioness glowed, the gardens bloomed with extra color. Goodness, even the sun shone more brightly, now that the master returned.

If Nell had remained a housemaid, avoiding his lordship would have been simple. For his mother’s companion, it was impossible. With every day, maintaining her loathing became more difficult. And each moment felt more like a betrayal of Dorothy’s memory. Nell could almost believe that there were two Lord Leaths. One despoiled innocent girls and abandoned them to suffer the consequences. The other was kind to his mother and considerate of his staff and careful with his tenants.

She couldn’t believe Dorothy had deceived her—her half sister’s dying words had rung with anguish and burning sincerity. But still Nell couldn’t match the Leath she came to know with the man who so callously had destroyed an innocent girl.

Her desperation to find the diary built to a frenzy. Hatred alone gave her courage to carry out her scheme. She didn’t want to think how Leath’s sternness softened when he smiled at her ladyship. She needed instead to remember Dorothy lying quiet and unmoving after breathing her last.

Wariness—and awareness—deepened every time that enigmatic gaze settled upon Nell, as if the marquess added up all he knew about her and found the total wanting.

As Leath approached the library after his morning ride, he heard the unexpected sound of laughter. Frowning, he opened the door and paused, observing the tableau before him. A tableau that didn’t please him at all.

He was used to everyone snapping to attention. He wasn’t by nature a vain man, but how irritating that neither of the people sharing a jolly chat noticed him. Paul Crane, his staid-as-a-maiden-aunt secretary, poised halfway up the library stairs, passing books down to a beautiful woman who smiled at him as if she enjoyed the most wonderful time.

Of course it was Miss Trim. Miss Trim who never looked so animated nor so happy in the company of the man who paid her wages. Morning sun poured through the tall windows to light her graceful figure. She looked unassuming in one of her ubiquitous gray dresses. Her hair was scraped back in its severe style. She made a most unlikely seductress, but something in Leath stirred to savage resentment that she smiled at Crane in a way she’d never smiled at him.

“Clarissa will keep her ladyship busy,” Crane said.

“It’s rather dour,” Miss Trim said. “What about something by Miss Austen?”

“At least they’re shorter.”

Who knew his secretary read novels? And what other housemaid discussed books with such familiarity? She was an unusual one, Miss Trim. So unusual that Leath felt like grabbing those straight shoulders and shaking her until she confessed her secrets.

“Here’s Pride and Prejudice. That’s a favorite in my family.”

“Mine too.”

Family? She claimed to be an orphan. Leath tensed like a hunting dog on a fox’s scent.

“Her ladyship might have read it.”

“His lordship needs to get something more recent for his mother,” Miss Trim said, making Leath bristle at the implication of neglect. “It’s odd that she doesn’t get a standing order of the latest books from Hatchards. Surely Lady Sophie wanted to read something published in the last ten years.”

“Lady Sophie wasn’t much of a reader,” Crane said. “If I can assist with making a list for the marchioness, I’d be happy to oblige. My sister is always mentioning some book or another in her letters.”

“Clearly I’m not keeping you busy enough, Crane,” Leath said acidly.

Silence crashed down. Crane wobbled on the ladder and dropped the leather volume onto the carpet. “My lord …”

Miss Trim turned more slowly. “Your lordship,” she said coolly, curtsying and lowering her eyes.

Damn it, Leath already regretted the loss of that glorious smile. It was possible he made her uneasy—God knew, his constant physical yen for her made him uneasy. But he didn’t think she was frightened. Instead, he felt like she watched him, waiting for some slip. He had no idea why. But his skin prickled when she was in the room, and not just because of his inconvenient interest.

“My lord, Miss … Miss Trim wanted some reading for her ladyship. I didn’t think you’d mind if I helped her.” On unsteady legs, Crane descended and bent to retrieve the book. “I can only apologize most sincerely if I’ve overstepped the mark.”

Damn it, Leath had reduced his obliging and efficient secretary to a stuttering wreck. He hated feeling like the specter at the feast. Illogically, he blamed the girl whose gaze was focused on the floor. The girl who looked as if she’d never permit an insubordinate thought to cross her mind.

He believed that like he believed in fairies building bowers in his parterre.

Despite his guilt, his voice was stern. “I’d like that report on draining the Lincolnshire property today.”

“Yes, sir,” Crane said miserably. He passed the book to Miss Trim. “I’m sure her ladyship will like this.”

Leath’s grumpiness deepened as she bestowed a glimmer of a smile upon Crane. “Thank you. I’m sorry I kept you from your work.”

“Not at all,” he said, and Leath’s eyes narrowed on the young man’s besotted expression. Crane had always struck him as a sensible fellow. Leath would hardly have employed him if he wasn’t. Clearly the marquess wasn’t the only man at Alloway Chase susceptible to wide brown eyes.

“Crane,” Leath said curtly.

“Immediately, my lord.” He glanced nervously at his employer, swallowing until his Adam’s apple bobbed, then disappeared into the office.

“Not so fast.” Leath caught Miss Trim’s arm as she edged toward the door. The contact slammed through him, demanded that he kiss the impertinence out of her. Pride alone steadied his grip. “I’ll thank you to stay away from my secretary.”

Brown eyes could be warm as honey. They could also flash with disdain. After a blistering moment of communication that had nothing to do with lord and housemaid and everything to do with male and female, she glanced away. “Yes, my lord.”

He stared at her, willing her to look at him properly. Even, heaven save him, smile the way she’d smiled at that stupid boy Paul Crane. “See that you follow my instructions.”

“Yes, sir.”

His hand tightened. Through her woolen sleeve, he felt her strength. He was used to society ladies. Miss Trim felt real and earthy in a way no woman of his own class ever did.

The silence lengthened. Became awkward. Reminded him of those charged moments the night they’d met. He still woke from dreams with her citrus scent filling his senses and his arms curling around a fantasy Eleanor Trim. In his most forbidden fantasies, he did a lot more than hold her in his arms.

He hadn’t panted after the maids since he was an adolescent. Even then, he’d recognized the essential unfairness of pursuing women who worked for him. How could a woman freely give consent to the man who paid her wages?

Despite Miss Trim’s outward docility, he knew that she’d have no trouble denying him. Blast her.

“May I go, sir?”

He caught a faint edge of mockery. He hated to think that she recognized his lust. He didn’t trust her, he didn’t much like her, but dear Lord above, she set him afire as no woman ever had.

“No.”

This time when her eyes flashed up to his, he was delighted to see trepidation in the coppery depths. So far, they’d played a game where she knew the rules and he didn’t. That disadvantage ended today.

He’d tried ignoring her. Much good that had done. Now he’d try a direct challenge. “Sit down. I want to talk to you.”

A frown crossed her face. “Her ladyship will wonder where I am.”

“I won’t keep you long,” he said coolly, releasing her with a reluctance he hated to acknowledge and gesturing toward a chair.

He moved behind the desk, hoping that the authoritative position might lend him some desperately needed gravitas. How ludicrous that he’d faced down the greatest men in the land without a qualm, yet this one humble girl, who worked for him, goddamn it, made him as unsure as a boy with his first sweetheart.

Not that he was naïve enough to imagine anything romantic happened here. He had a bad case of blue balls for an unsuitable woman. Given that satisfying his craving was out of the question—not least because if word got out about him tupping his mother’s companion, he’d rusticate in Yorkshire forever—he needed to control himself.

Easier said than done.

Miss Trim had a subtle, enticing beauty. Every time he saw her, he thought her lovelier. Right now, with her chin set and a flush on her slanted cheekbones—perhaps embarrassment, more likely vexation—she was delicious. Like a cranky goddess.

The silence extended. And extended.

“We weren’t doing any harm,” she said eventually, without looking at him.

“Crane has work to do. Too much to waste time flirting with pretty girls.”

Hell, he’d better watch his tongue. At the compliment, the pink in her cheeks deepened delightfully. She had lovely skin, smooth and creamy. It looked as soft as velvet and his fingers curled against the blotter as he beat back the urge to touch her.

“It was only a few minutes, and he was being kind.”

Leath hid a wince at the unspoken criticism that he, in contrast, wasn’t kind. She had a point. Crane hadn’t deserved the reprimand. “My mother doesn’t like novels.”

“She does now. I suggested something more entertaining than those dry-as-dust treatises you send her.”

She was definitely criticizing him, the baggage. “She’s satisfied with my choices.”

At last Miss Trim raised her eyes and looked at him properly. As he expected, there was no fear in her expression. Instead more watchfulness. “That’s what she’d tell you, I’m sure.”

“She likes to keep up with my political career.”

That lush mouth quirked with a faint derision that made him feel like a gauche schoolboy. “Yes.”

An ocean of implication in one short syllable. Because Miss Trim must be aware that just now he had no political career. And if he didn’t keep his nose clean until they invited him back, he’d never have a political career again. Good enough reason, even if he forgot that he was a gentleman, to keep his hands off her, however beguiling she was. And now she’d stopped pretending to be a dutiful domestic with no will beyond her master’s, he found her very beguiling indeed, bugger it.

She was a puzzle. He didn’t like puzzles. But however closely he’d observed her over the last week, he couldn’t work out her scheme. Perhaps she was what she claimed to be, a woman down on her luck.

Perhaps.

“You’re a very unusual housemaid, Miss Trim,” he said and was intrigued that his remark made her uncomfortable. Every instinct shrieked that she hid something.

“Because I suggested that your mother might enjoy a novel?”

“I doubt many of my housemaids could recommend a lady’s reading,” he said neutrally, steepling his fingers and regarding her.

She raised her chin with un-housemaid-like hauteur. She tried to play the self-effacing servant, but she wasn’t much good at it. Something else that made him question her background. Girls went into service young and were trained to become obedient ciphers. There was nothing of the cipher about Miss Trim, and while she wasn’t exactly disobedient, there was an edge to her that indicated she cooperated only so far as she was willing.

“Have you asked them?” she said sweetly, regarding him as unwaveringly as he watched her.

His lips twitched. “No, I haven’t. But I’d still like to know where you developed this extensive knowledge.”

More discomfort. For a woman who lied so often, she was dashed bad at it. “The lady who was my last employer encouraged me to better myself.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So she read you the latest books while you polished the silver?” He didn’t bother to mask his skepticism.

To do her credit, she hardly flinched, although in her lap she gripped the Austen like a lifeline. “Yes, sir.”

“I’m surprised you left this paragon.” He could come right out and accuse her of lying, but where would be the fun in that?

Her lips tightened. “Needs must, sir. Why don’t you believe me?”

He leaned his chin on his joined fingers and regarded her. “Should I?”

“Yes.” She sucked in an annoyed breath and he felt a strange little tug in the vicinity of his heart. The housemaid shell became thinner by the moment. He still didn’t trust her, but he’d lay money that she was closer to her real self now than she’d been since their encounter on his first night home. “My lord, do you find my work unsatisfactory?”

“My mother likes you.” Both of them knew that was no answer.

Her expression softened and he realized that whatever else he doubted, she was genuinely fond of his mother. “I’m most grateful to her ladyship for her kindness. There’s no conspiracy in asking Mr. Crane to help me find something to ease her cares.”

He frowned. “Is her health worse?”

Miss Trim’s gaze became shuttered. “She doesn’t complain.”

So she was loyal to his mother. Perhaps the marchioness’s favor wasn’t completely misplaced. “She wouldn’t.”

The girl’s eyes narrowed and he remembered what had made him mistrust her motives from the first. Whatever lip service she gave to his title, she didn’t like him.

How bizarre.

He muffled a wry laugh. What an arrogant coxcomb he was. He’d never before wondered if his employees liked him. They did a job. He paid them—generously. Most of the time, he hardly thought about them.

He thought about Miss Trim far too often.

“She’s looking better for your return, my lord.”

Ha, another barely hidden accusation of neglect. He ought to put this presumptuous chit in her place and tell her that if anyone wanted him in London fulfilling his father’s dreams, it was the marchioness.

The girl shifted restlessly, behavior unacceptable in a well-trained domestic. It was clear that Miss Trim would dearly love to finish this conversation.

Too bad.

“You will tell me if my mother’s health deteriorates.” More order than request.

Her shoulders went straight as a ruler. She didn’t like being told what to do, yet domestics were accustomed to having every move regulated. Whatever Miss Trim had done before coming to Alloway Chase, he’d lay money that she’d been nobody’s household drudge.

Which begged the question—just why was she here?

“Perhaps you should ask her yourself, sir.”

“I doubt she’d tell me.”

A faint smile lightened her expression. “You’re probably right. But I suspect a man of your cleverness could get an answer.”

“Lately I’ve lost all confidence in my cleverness,” he said with a sigh, thinking how little he’d managed to glean from this interview. Miss Trim’s ability to evade a straight answer put his parliamentary colleagues to shame.

Briefly he thought she might respond to that, but another of those damned evocative silences descended. Into the quiet, the clock outside chimed eleven. He’d kept her too long. Too long for his peace of mind. Too long for her reputation with the other servants.

Just … too long.

He gestured dismissal. “That will be all, Trim.”

After a brief curtsy, she disappeared through the door with a speed that betrayed her eagerness to escape. He stood and stared unseeing through the window at the flat gray disk of the lake. A premonition that he invited danger by singling out this girl weighted his belly.

He wondered about his strange affinity with Miss Trim. He wondered about the hunger she aroused. He’d never felt anything like this before. If he wanted a woman—and he made sure he only wanted women who wouldn’t cause trouble—he made arrangements, scratched the itch, and moved on to more important issues.

He couldn’t dismiss the delectable Miss Trim as unimportant, whatever he tried to tell himself. The thought of tumbling her thundered through him like an earthquake. His head might insist that he’d recover from his inappropriate interest. His ravenous senses told him that he had to have her soon or go mad with it.

That edgy, roundabout conversation just now had been a mistake. He was more intrigued than ever. And more convinced that she concealed secrets.

Even worse, he knew that he wouldn’t leave her alone, whatever the risks.

Nor was his mood improved when he checked the mail piled on the desk to find two more of the sad little letters that had haunted him this last year. The revelations of his uncle’s crimes seemed never to end, but for Leath, the most pathetic results of Neville Fairbrother’s activities were the begging notes from women raising children in poverty and disgrace. Letters addressed to Leath because Lord Neville had assumed his nephew’s identity when he’d seduced these girls.

For most of his life, Leath had done his best to ignore his odious relative, so he had no idea how long the swine had played this particular game. From the timing of the letters, Leath guessed at most a few months before his uncle’s suicide.

Why had Neville Fairbrother stolen his nephew’s name? The answer had died last year with his uncle, but Leath could guess. Some spiteful attempt to destroy his nephew’s reputation. A way of diverting blame from where it belonged. Perhaps even an attempt to impress the women with a marquess’s title.

Whatever his uncle’s motives, the scheme couldn’t have continued indefinitely. While it was clear that the man had threatened his victims to keep their mouths shut, he must have known that his deceit would emerge. Perhaps he thought that family pride would keep Leath complicit, even after the masquerade was exposed.

The women who had written to Leath had all been so desperate that they’d braved his uncle’s wrath to ask for help. His heart ached for these innocents. The scale of the devastation Neville Fairbrother had left behind beggared imagination.

Leath had employed a confidential agent to locate the women and offer aid. Otherwise he’d kept the letters private. Good God, if this got out, especially if people believed Leath rather than his repulsive uncle had fathered the children, all hope of high office would disintegrate.

His confidential agent could help him with something else. Miss Trim had arrived bearing glowing references. Perhaps it was time someone investigated her background.