Читать книгу A Rake's Midnight Kiss - Anna Campbell - Страница 11

First Genevieve noticed the dog.

She sat by the window staring vaguely outside, her embroidery ignored on her lap. The vicarage’s parlor overlooked a back lane running off the Oxford road. Across the room, her widowed aunt strove to entertain Lord Neville Fairbrother, who had called to see her father. This afternoon the vicar was with a parishioner and Lord Neville, to Genevieve’s regret, had decided to wait instead of returning to his nearby manor Youngton Hall. His lordship funded her papa’s scholarly endeavors, but she couldn’t like the man. Something about his deep-set eyes made her skin crawl and his oppressive presence sucked the air from a room.

When a large mongrel trotted along the lane, she straightened with surprise. In Little Derrick, stray dogs received scant welcome. The brindle hound sat on his haunches and checked back toward the corner. Within moments, a high-perch phaeton of an elegance rarely seen in these parts bowled into view.

Curiosity glued Genevieve to the window. The driver wore a beautifully cut coat and a beaver hat tipped at what even she recognized as a rakish angle. With the merest touch of his fingers, he controlled the pair of showy chestnut horses drawing the yellow and black carriage.

What brought such a swell to deepest Oxfordshire? He must be lost. The narrow lane led only to the vicarage’s stables. No man of style would find their humble abode of interest. Actually she couldn’t imagine why a man of style associated with such a déclassé mutt. The gypsies camped by the river would disdain such a dog, yet it was clear from the animal’s cheerful bark that he belonged to the driver.

The carriage and its spectacular horses, trailed by the less spectacular hound, disappeared around the wall surrounding the back garden. The man would discover his mistake soon enough and turn around, she supposed.

Genevieve waited for the man and his dog to reappear. A small drama to punctuate a dull afternoon. An afternoon that would have been considerably less dull if Lord Neville hadn’t hindered her scholarly pursuits. She had plans in train to change her life and his lordship’s presence interfered with their progress.

When the carriage didn’t immediately return, she lifted her needle with a sigh. She had little talent for embroidery, but it gave her an excuse to avoid talking to their visitor.

Dorcas, their maid, opened the door, clutching a small cardboard rectangle in her hand. Aunt Lucy had struggled to inculcate the habit of placing calling cards on a salver, but Dorcas couldn’t see the necessity. So far, Dorcas was winning that particular war. “Begging your pardon, missus, but the vicar has a visitor.”

Aunt Lucy stood to take the creased card, then passed it to Genevieve. Christopher Evans. The name meant nothing to her. “Did you say my father isn’t home?”

“Yes, miss. But he asks to wait.” Dorcas’s cheeks flushed a becoming shade of pink. “He’s ever so handsome, miss. Pretty as a picture. And such a gentleman.”

Despite herself, Genevieve glanced at Lord Neville. He didn’t bother to hide his disapproval of Dorcas’s flutterings. “Tell the fellow to make an appointment, girl.”

How Genevieve would love to remind the arrogant oaf to mind his manners, but her father would never forgive her for alienating his patron. The vicar’s living and scholarly work covered essentials, but luxuries came thanks to Lord Neville’s support. “It could be something important.”

“Indeed.” Aunt Lucy ignored his lordship’s interjection. “Please invite Mr. Evans to step into the parlor.”

Genevieve laid aside her embroidery frame. Rising, she smoothed the skirts on her plain green muslin gown. The man who strolled into the room was the phaeton’s driver, as she’d expected. Although for the life of her, she couldn’t imagine what business such a tulip of fashion had with her father.

While Dorcas might lack refinement, there was nothing wrong with her eyes. Mr. Evans was, indeed, handsome. Remarkably so.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Evans. I’m Mrs. Warren, the vicar’s sister-in-law.”

“Your servant, Mrs. Warren.” Mr. Evans bowed over Aunt Lucy’s hand. Genevieve noted her aunt’s dazed admiration. “Please forgive my intrusion. Last night at Sedgemoor’s, the vicar was kind enough to ask me to call.”

Last night, the vicar had attended another dinner at Leighton Court. He’d come home in an incoherent lather at the attentions he’d received from the duke and his guests.

The newcomer’s voice was smooth, educated, and oddly familiar. Genevieve frowned as her mind winnowed where they’d met. Unlike her father, her life was not awash with new acquaintances. The only stranger she’d encountered recently was her mysterious burglar four days ago on the night of the vicar’s first visit to the manor.

Half-formed thoughts hurtling through her mind, she studied the stranger. Mr. Evans shared the burglar’s height but not his bright gold hair. This man’s hair was dull brown. His hair was the only dull thing about him. His face was lean and distinguished. His jaw was firm and determined. His clothing was remarkably elegant, for all that he dressed for the country.

What a fool she was to imagine a fleeting similarity. The Duke of Sedgemoor would hardly play host to a sneak thief. Her nerves were still on edge after the break-in.

“He didn’t mention your call,” Genevieve said steadily.

Mr. Evans turned to Genevieve and dark blue eyes, guileless as the sky, surveyed her top to toe. Lord Neville inspected her in a similar manner at every meeting. This time instead of aversion, she felt a frisson of feminine awareness. Every nerve tightened with warning. This man had predator stamped all over him.

“Is this an inconvenient time? I can come another day.” A quizzical expression lit Mr. Evans’s face and Genevieve realized he’d misunderstood her scowl. Apparently awkward social behavior at the vicarage wasn’t confined to the maid. Color pricked at her cheeks.

“Mr. Evans, I’m—”

A storm of screeching and hissing drowned her answer. Hecuba, her aged black cat, leaped onto Genevieve’s shoulder, dug her claws in, then launched herself at the high shelf lined with china plates. The dog barked once, then settled at his master’s heel.

“Good God!” Lord Neville jumped back. Aunt Lucy shrieked and cowered against her chair. Mr. Evans, who had until now struck her as a rather languid gentleman, moved with impressive speed to save a blue and white Delft plate that Genevieve had always hated.

“I’ll put Sirius outside,” he said calmly, handing her the dish.

The dog regarded her with reproach. He was behaving perfectly, so she felt like a traitor when she agreed. “That might be wise.”

“But first I’ll rescue your cat.”

“Hecuba doesn’t like men,” Genevieve said quickly, but Mr. Evans had already reached up. To her astonishment, Hecuba dived into his arms as fast as a gannet plunged into the sea after a herring.

“I see that,” he said solemnly. Somehow she knew that beneath his grave demeanor, he laughed at her.

“How bizarre,” she said, momentarily distracted from the chaos. Even from a few feet away, Genevieve heard purrs of delight as the big, lean man cradled Hecuba to his dark brown coat. She’d rescued Hecuba as a kitten from neighborhood lads attempting to set fire to her tail. Since then, the cat couldn’t abide the touch of any human male.

With a gentleness that made Genevieve’s foolish heart skip a beat, Mr. Evans passed Hecuba across. Hecuba’s reluctance to forsake her new beau was audible. The man snapped his fingers at the dog. “Come, Sirius. Outside.”

Genevieve still recovered from her odd reaction to the sight of those capable, deft hands handling her cat. She bent over Hecuba, hoping that nobody noticed that the usually unruffled Genevieve Barrett was indisputably ruffled.

Who was this fellow? Gentlemen of such address never came within her orbit. Or her father’s. Well, apart from the Duke of Sedgemoor. But he was so far beyond her touch, he hardly counted as a mortal man. Lord Neville might be wellborn, but he lacked the newcomer’s polish.

“Let Sirius stay.” She cursed her breathless tone. What on earth was wrong with her? At twenty-five, she was well past the giggly stage. Yet Mr. Evans had an extraordinary effect on her. He made her feel as though her world span out of control. And he’d done it with an ease that she couldn’t help resenting.

The man glanced at her and the laughter in his eyes stirred another shiver of awareness. She straightened against unwelcome giddiness. Mr. Christopher Evans was far too charming for his own good.

Or for hers.

“Thank you. He really is well trained.” As if to prove it, he clicked his fingers again and Sirius trotted to his side. Once more, Genevieve was struck by the contrast between the man’s breeding and the dog’s disreputable appearance.

“Allow me to make introductions.” She hoped Mr. Evans wouldn’t notice the catch in her voice, but she had a sinking feeling that he knew his power over susceptible women—among whom, apparently, she must count herself.

“This is my father’s friend, Lord Neville Fairbrother.” Genevieve couldn’t help contrasting Lord Neville’s blunt, swarthy features with Mr. Evans’s spare elegance.

“I hope I’m your friend too, Genevieve,” Lord Neville sniffed. He gave the stranger a distinctly condescending nod. “Evans.”

“Lord Neville.”

“And I’m Genevieve Barrett. Please sit down, Mr. Evans.” Her aunt had abdicated her duties as hostess in exchange for the delights of ogling their visitor. “I’ll ring for tea.”

“Thank you.” With a flourish, he settled on the spindly chair beside her aunt. The dog, as promised, behaved perfectly and lay at his side without glancing at Hecuba.

“My father is on parish duties.” Genevieve retreated to the window seat, still cuddling Hecuba.

The man smiled and Genevieve’s heart, which had almost settled into its usual rhythm, jumped again. Handsome? Mr. Christopher Evans, whoever he was, was downright beautiful.

“No matter. I hoped to extend my acquaintance in the neighborhood.”

Her skin prickled with preternatural warning. This didn’t sound good. This didn’t sound good at all. This sounded like he wasn’t just passing through. She wasn’t usually at the mercy of animal instinct, but every atom insisted that Mr. Evans wasn’t what he seemed. The moment he’d spoken, her heart had known him for a liar. And just what was he doing in Little Derrick?

“You’ll find no entertainment in this backwater,” Lord Neville said snidely as he resumed his chair.

“La, Lord Neville, you are unkind.”

Genevieve cringed at her aunt’s archness.

“Not at all.” He barely disguised his derision. “Beyond our scholarly circle, there’s precious little of interest.”

“His Grace recommended the scenic beauties of this corner of Oxfordshire.” Mr. Evans focused on Genevieve with intent that even a bluestocking couldn’t misread. “He didn’t exaggerate.”

Stupid, stupid blushes. She tried to hold Mr. Evans’s gaze, but her nerve failed and she stared out the window. She could already tell that he was an accomplished flirt. Even when the only female within reach was tall, awkward Genevieve Barrett with her ink-stained fingers.

Her hands tightened in Hecuba’s silky coat. The cat complained and wriggled free. Ignoring the dog, she twined around the furniture to leap into Mr. Evans’s lap. Immediately those hard capable hands curled around the black cat. Genevieve suppressed another discomfiting reaction.

A rattle along the back lane diverted her troubled thoughts. “Papa is here.”

“Excellent,” Lord Neville said. “He promised to show me that illuminated manuscript Carruthers sent.”

“I hear it’s a peach.” Mr. Evans’s enthusiasm wouldn’t shame the keenest medievalist.

Shocked, Genevieve met his brilliant eyes. “You’re an antiquarian, Mr. Evans?”

The doubt in her question had her aunt frowning. Poor Aunt Lucy. She’d lived at the vicarage since her sister’s death fifteen years ago, and she’d spent most of that time struggling to instill manners into her niece. With little success, Genevieve regretted to admit.

The mobile mouth quirked, although Mr. Evans answered politely enough. “In this company, I’d hesitate to describe myself as such.”

Too smooth by half, my fine fellow.

Her father bustled into the room, saving her from responding to their guest’s false modesty. “Lord Neville! An unexpected pleasure.” Then he turned and spoke with an unalloyed joy that set Lord Neville wincing. “And Mr. Evans! If I’d known you visited, I’d have put off my business. I so enjoyed our discussion last night. Have they given you tea? No? Goodness, what will you think of us? A bunch of country mice, begad.”

The vicar wasn’t a quiet presence. His voice bounced off the walls and set the dog twitching. Genevieve’s father strode across the room to wring Mr. Evans’s hand with a zeal that made Genevieve, inclined to disapprove of the newcomer, bristle with resentment. Her father was a man of international reputation, however ill-deserved. He didn’t need to toady to the quality.

She sighed, heartily wishing that Mr. Evans would slouch back to wherever he came from. Already she could foresee conflict between him and Lord Neville, and she didn’t feel up to dealing with another of her father’s crazes.

Fleetingly Genevieve observed her father as a stranger might. Tall, graying, distinguished, with a distracted air that indicated a mind fixed on higher things. Once she’d believed that. Now however much she loved him with a stubborn affection that never wavered, she couldn’t contain the coldness that crept into their relations. Her father looked like an Old Testament prophet, but at heart he was a selfish, weak man.

Dorcas chose that moment to bring in the tea tray. The small parlor became uncomfortably crowded. Advancing toward the table, the maid danced around the vicar. Genevieve blushed to see milk splash from the jug. Mr. Evans really would think they were bumpkins. Then she reminded herself that she didn’t give a groat what Mr. Evans thought.

Genevieve managed to serve tea without tripping over any of the room’s occupants, animal or human. Lord Neville drew her father into a discussion of some scholarly point. Her aunt engaged Mr. Evans in conversation about local amenities. Genevieve retired to the window seat and retrieved her embroidery.

She inhaled and struggled for calm. Absurd to let a handsome face affect her so. She’d always accounted herself immune to masculine attractions. Certainly none of the men in her father’s circle had set anything but intellect buzzing. Her reaction to Mr. Evans had nothing at all to do with intellect and it frightened her.

“How charming to see a lady at her sewing.”

Skeptically Genevieve glanced up. Mr. Evans leaned against the window frame, watching her. In his arms, that hussy Hecuba looked utterly enraptured.

“I like to keep busy, Mr. Evans.” She didn’t soften the edge in her voice. He needed to know that not every denizen of Little Derrick’s vicarage was ready to roll over and present a belly for scratching. However, the picture of lying before him begging for caresses was so vivid, her wayward color rose. She prayed he didn’t notice.

When he placed Hecuba on the floor, the cat regarded both humans with sulky displeasure before stalking away. He plucked the embroidery frame from Genevieve’s hold. She waited for some complimentary remark. For purposes that she hadn’t yet fathomed, the man seemed determined to charm.

A silence fell. Genevieve dared a glance. He maintained a scrupulously straight face.

“It’s a peony,” she said helpfully.

His mouth lengthened but, to give him credit, he didn’t laugh. “I … see that.”

“Really?” She retrieved her embroidery and inspected it closely. Even she, who knew what it was supposed to represent, had trouble discerning the subject.

Without invitation, Mr. Evans settled on the window seat. He crossed his arms over his chest and extended his long, booted legs across the faded rug. Surreptitiously she inched away.

“I believe you assist your father with his work.”

Unfortunately, he couldn’t have said anything more liable to annoy her. Her eyes narrowed and old grievances cramped her stomach. “I am most helpful, sir,” she said flatly.

The evening light through the window lay across his hair but caught no shine in the brown. Hecuba rubbed against his ankles, purring fit to explode. Catching Lord Neville’s glower from across the room, Genevieve bent over her sewing. Surely he didn’t imagine she encouraged this decorative interloper. And even if he thought that, he had no right to censure her behavior.

“At Leighton Court last night, the vicar praised your abilities.”

“Are you surprised to hear of a woman using her brains?” she asked with a sweetness that would warn anyone who knew her.

He sighed and leveled a surprisingly perceptive regard upon her. “I have a nasty feeling that somewhere I’ve taken a wrong step with you, Miss Barrett.”

For a bristling moment, she stared into his face and wondered why she was so certain that he had ulterior motives.

“It hardly matters.” She should turn his comment aside. After all, he wasn’t likely to become a fixture in her life. Even if he lingered in the neighborhood, the vicarage’s fusty medievalists would soon bore him.

“If I’ve inadvertently offended, please accept my apologies.”

Curse him, he’d shifted closer and his arm draped along the windowsill behind her. She stiffened and, abandoning pride, slid toward the corner. “Mr. Evans, you are presumptuous.”

His lips twitched. “Miss Barrett, you are correct.”

“Pray be presumptuous at a greater distance.”

His laugh was low and attractive. “How can I argue when you’re armed?”

She realized that she brandished the needle like a miniature sword. Despite her annoyance, the scene’s absurdity struck her and she choked back a laugh. She stabbed the needle into a full-blown peony that sadly resembled a sunburned chicken. “You waste your attentions, sir.”

“I hate to think so,” he said with a soft intensity that had her regarding him with little short of horror. Was that a challenge? And how on earth should she respond?

Luckily her father spoke. “Mr. Evans, Lord Neville wants to see that codex. Are you interested?”

The vicar’s question shattered the taut silence. Mr. Evans blinked as if emerging from a trance. She realized she’d been searching his face with as much attention as she gave a historical document.

He turned toward her father. “Of course, sir. Lead on.”

Without the gentlemen and Sirius, the parlor felt forlorn. As though Mr. Evans’s departure leached the light away. Genevieve glanced across to where her aunt stared into space, hands loose in her lap.

“What a lovely man,” she said dreamily.

Genevieve stifled a growl and stood to collect the teacups and place them onto the tray. “He thinks he is.”

Aunt Lucy’s stare was surprisingly acute. “Because he treated you like a woman and not some moldy book from your father’s library, you’ve taken against him.”

“Don’t be a henwit, Aunt. That kind of man flirts with any female in reach. Today that’s you, me, and Hecuba.” Hearing her name, Hecuba curled around Genevieve’s ankles. “It’s too late to make amends, you minx.”

“I hope he’ll be a regular visitor,” her aunt said. “I worry that you’ll never find a man to marry.”

Shocked, Genevieve nearly dropped the tray. “Aunt! Don’t be absurd. Even if I liked Mr. Evans—and I don’t, he’s too conceited—I don’t want a husband. I’ve got my work.”

It was a familiar argument. Her aunt was a conventional woman and couldn’t bear for her niece to die a spinster. In Aunt Lucy’s eyes, any halfway eligible man who wandered into Genevieve’s vicinity was a likely match. She’d once even suggested Genevieve set her cap for Lord Neville. What a nauseating thought. The man was at least twenty years too old, he was bullying and dictatorial, and his touch made her skin itch with revulsion.

“Work won’t keep you warm at night.” Aunt Lucy paused. “I suspect Mr. Evans would be very … warm.”