Читать книгу Regency Pleasures and Sins Part 2 - Elizabeth Rolls - Страница 74

Trey was in the grip of an excessively bad mood. He had travelled halfway round the world, only to end up in Bedlam. He had given his word, and so he had given up Egypt. And he had ended up in a madhouse.

It hadn’t been his first impression. He’d left the village this afternoon, taking the coastal path as directed, and he’d thought this must be one of the most wild and beautiful spots on the Earth. Oddly enough, he found himself uncomfortable with the surrounding lushness. After the spare desert beauty of Egypt, this part of Devon appeared to be blessed with an embarrassment of riches: stunning ocean views of harbour and bay, woodlands full of gnarled trees, rocky cliffs, and charming dells bursting with early springtime displays.

Oakwood Court blended right into the undisciplined vista. The long, meandering drive left the coastal path and took one on a leisurely trip through a wooded grove, then abruptly broke free to cross a sweeping lawn. A traveller found oneself gifted with a stunning tableau of a many-gabled Elizabethan manor nestled against a rising, wooded slope. It was a distinctive old house, full of character.

Trey had never met Mervyn Latimer, Richard’s famous grandfather, who had won a cargo ship in a card game and turned it into one of the biggest shipping companies in England. Yet just by spending a short amount of time in his house, Trey felt as if he knew something of the eccentric old man. His larger-than-life presence fairly permeated the place, along with many fascinating objects that must have been collected throughout his travels.

And although the many curiosities hanging on walls, gracing the tables and filling the shelves of the house were interesting, they were as nothing compared to the arresting collection of human oddities he’d found here.

Directly after Trey’s heroic rescue of dinner—the boy’s words—his horse had been taken up by the groom. The wizened little man with a peg leg looked as if he belonged in the rigging of a Barbary pirate’s ship. Yet he soothed the fidgety horse with a soft voice and gentle hands, and the skittish hack followed after him like a lamb.

Trey, in all his greased and bloodied glory, had been handed over to the housekeeper. A dour Scot if he had ever met one, she wore a constant frown, spoke in gruff tones, and carried heavy buckets of water as if they weighed nothing. Yet she worked with brisk efficiency and made sure he had everything a gentleman could ask for his toilet. Save, perhaps, clothes that fit.

She’d come to fetch him once he was changed into some of Richard’s left-behind things, rasping out a crotchety, ‘Come along with ye, then, to the drawing room.’ He did, stalking after the woman along a long corridor with many framed maps upon the wall, and down a dark stairwell.

One notion struck Trey as they moved through the large house. There was a curious lack of activity. There were no enticing kitchen smells, no butler guarding the door, no footmen to carry water, no maids dusting the collection of bric-a-brac. Trey might be the black sheep of his family and a dark hole on the glittering map of the ton, but he had grown up in a substantial house and knew the kind of activity required to run it. The lack was somehow unnerving, and lent the house a stale, unused air. Somehow it felt more like an unkempt museum than a home.

Eventually they arrived on the first floor, and the housekeeper stopped before a richly panelled door. She pushed it open without preamble, stood aside and said, ‘In here.’ Without even waiting to see him cross the threshold, she shuffled off towards the back of the house.

Trey entered to find yet another room filled with the inanimate detritus of a well-travelled collector. And one animate specimen.

It was a child, of perhaps two or three years. Trey blanched. The only thing more inherently threatening than a respectable female was a child, and this one was both. She was very pretty, with long chestnut curls, but her heart-shaped face was smeared and her grubby little hands were leaving marks on the sofa she stood upon.

‘Livvie do it,’ she said, pointing down behind the piece of furniture.

Why the devil would a child be left alone in the parlour? Suppressing a sigh, Trey crossed the room to peer into the narrow space she indicated. The wall behind the sofa was smudged with what looked to be honey and a crumbled mess lay on the floor below. ‘Yes,’ he agreed with the solemn-faced sprite. ‘You did do it, didn’t you?’

She sighed and abruptly lifted both hands towards him.

Trey grimaced. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said, shaking his head.

She only grunted and lifted her demanding little arms again.

Trey decided to take charge. Children responded to authority, did they not? ‘Come down from there,’ he said firmly. ‘We shall find the irresponsible creature meant to be in charge of you.’ He snapped his fingers and pointed to the floor.

The child’s lower lip poked out and started to tremble. Great, fat tears welled in her brown eyes. ‘Up,’ she whimpered.

Hell and high water, were females born knowing how to manipulate? It must be a skill transferred from mother to daughter in the womb. Well, stubbornness was the gift his mother has passed to him, or so he’d been told many times in his own childhood. ‘No,’ he said more firmly still. ‘Now hop down from there at once.’

The tears swelled and ran over, making tracks on her dirty cheeks. ‘Uuuuuppp!’ she wailed, and her little body began to shake with the force of her sobs.

Oh, Lord, no. ‘Don’t do that,’ Trey commanded. ‘I’m picking you up.’ Grimacing in distaste, he plucked her off the sofa, trying to keep her at arm’s length. Quicker than a flash, more subtly done than the most precise of military manoeuvres, she foiled his effort and nestled up tightly against him.

Trey was suddenly and fiercely glad of the borrowed coat he wore. Underneath the chit’s sweet honey smell lurked a more suspicious odour. ‘Let’s go, then,’ he said, ‘and find your keeper.’

The door opened with a bang and a distracted Miss Latimer rushed in. ‘Oh, no,’ she gasped, rushing forward to take the child.

‘Shone!’ cried the little girl. ‘She-own! Livvie do it.’

‘I do beg your pardon, my lord.’ Miss Latimer strode back to the doorway and shouted in a most unladylike fashion, ‘I’ve found her!’

The dour housekeeper arrived a moment later. She never glanced at Trey, but took the child and scowled at her young mistress. ‘She’s taken a plate of bannocks with her,’ she said with a roll of her eyes, ‘so there’s no tellin’ where we’ll find the mess later.’

Miss Latimer shot an inquiring look at him. Trey had not the smallest desire to witness the fuss created should that discovery be made. He shrugged and maintained an air of innocence, and the young lady soon bundled the girl and the older woman out of the door.

Miss Latimer winced. ‘I must apologise, my lord. Our household has been greatly diminished since Richard’s death and Olivia will wander.’ She continued on, but Trey was not listening. He knew he was glowering at her, but he could not help himself.

God’s teeth, but he could not get over how beautiful she was. Her heavy, black tresses shone, as black as the moods that plagued him, as dark as any he had seen in his travels to the east. It was the perfect foil for her exotic skin, just exactly the tawny colour of moonlight on the desert sands.

Her eyes, framed by those lush lashes, agitated him. They were too old for her young and beautiful face. It was as if she had experienced too much sorrow, too much of the dark side of life, and it could not be contained. It spilled out of her, tinting her gaze with mystery, with knowing.

He realised most men would find her beauty fascinating, but damn it, this was exactly the sort of situation in which a man couldn’t afford to give in to attraction. Women like this came with a multitude of strings attached, and Trey hadn’t thrown off his own yoke of responsibility so he could take on someone else’s.

He could see that his glare was unsettling her. He knew that she was at best unnerved, and at worst unhappy, at his presence. He did not care. He was unnerved and unhappy, damn it, so she might as well be, too.

He had come to England to aid an ageing spinster facing an undefined danger. He had been fully prepared to root out the trouble, deliver the damned scarab, and then quickly return to Egypt. There had been no mention of thick eyelashes and long ebony hair. He was not supposed to be dealing with children, and their flying joints of meat and their artful tears. In fact, the only danger here appeared to be to his wardrobe.

And the girl was still talking. Trey had the sudden, nearly irresistible urge to get up and walk out, to drop the scarab in her lap and to never look back. He suppressed a sigh at the thought, for he knew he could not do it. But damn Richard for getting himself killed and thrusting his responsibilities in his lap! He rubbed his temple and wished the girl would stop talking. He wanted to get this over with and get back to his work as quickly as possible.

Miss Latimer did stop, at last, as the door opened again and young Will, freshly scrubbed, bounded into the room, the dog at his heel. The boy dutifully made his bow and went to kiss her. The dog made a beeline for Trey, collapsed upon his Hessians, and gazed adoringly at him, tongue lolling.

‘Oh, dear, I am sorry,’ Miss Latimer said yet again. ‘She has a hopeless passion for gentlemen.’

‘Mrs Ferguson says she likes their accessories—particularly the ones made of hide or leather.’ Will grinned.

‘Will—take the dog outside.’

‘She will howl,’ warned Will. He turned to Trey. ‘Morty likes you, Lord Treyford. Do you like dogs?’ he asked ingenuously.

‘For the most part,’ Trey said, reaching down to scratch behind the beast’s ears and lift her drooling head off of his boots. ‘Morty?’ he asked.

‘Her real name is Mortification,’ Will explained. ‘Squire named her because he said he was mortified that such an ugly pup came from his prize bitch. I shortened it to Morty so her feelings wouldn’t get hurt.’

‘Will saved her life,’ Miss Latimer explained. ‘Squire was going to have her destroyed.’

‘I gave my last guinea for her,’ said Will. ‘She’s my best friend.’

Women, babes and puppy love. Good God. No wonder Richard had fled to Egypt.

‘I’ve asked Mrs Ferguson to save a bone for her,’ she continued. ‘She will have it in the kitchens, so you may be left in peace, Lord Treyford.’

As if summoned by the mention of her name, the housekeeper appeared in the parlour door. Without ceremony she snapped her fingers at the dog. ‘Come, you hell-spawned hound. Bone!’

Evidently the dog was familiar with the word. She rose, gave herself a good jaw-flapping shake, then trotted off after the housekeeper, casting a coquettish glance back over her shoulder at Trey.

The damned dog was flirting with him.

He looked up. The girl gazed back, expectation clear in those haunting eyes.

Trey faltered at the sudden, strange hitch of his breath. Something sharp moved in his stomach. This was, suddenly, all too much for him. Too much clutter, too many people. Hell, even the dog seemed to want something of him. Trey knew himself for a hard man, surviving in a harsh world. He lived his life unencumbered, with relationships kept to a minimum and always kept clearly defined. Servant and master, buyer and seller, associate or rival. It was simpler that way. Safer. Neither of those attributes, he was sure, could be applied to this family, and that made him uncommonly nervous.

The intense stare that young Will was directing at him only increased his discomfort. Suddenly the boy opened his mouth and a barrage of questions came out of him, like the raking fire of a cannonade.

‘How long did it take to sail back to England? How hot is it in Egypt? Did you see any crocodiles? Have you brought back any mummies? Did you climb the pyramids? Were you afraid?’ Red-faced, the boy paused to draw breath. ‘Will you tell us over dinner? Please?’

Trey’s breath began to come faster. He cleared his throat. ‘Yes, well,’ he said, trying to keep the harshness from his voice, ‘actually, I’ve come to your home with a purpose, not on a social visit.’ The boy looked mutinous, and Trey rushed on. ‘I need a private moment with your sister, lad. I’ve a sort of … message, from Richard for her.’

The boy’s expression cleared of its clouds. ‘My sister?’ he scoffed. ‘She don’t know enough words to have a proper conversation, my lord. Did you mean Chione?’ He shot a devilish glance at the young lady, then turned to Trey, eyes sparkling as if sharing a great joke. ‘Chione’s my niece, not my sister!’

Now Trey was flustered, something that did not happen often. Niece? What sort of tangled mess had Richard dropped him into? He knew with certainty that there was only one answer to that: exactly the sort he had spent a lifetime avoiding.

Will was staring at him now. ‘Didn’t Richard tell you anything? He wrote us all about you. You see, my papa is Chione’s grandpapa, so I get to be her uncle. And Olivia gets to be her aunt! Isn’t that funny?’

It wasn’t funny. It had been a long time since Trey had felt this awkward. But there was no way he could tell the boy how he had discouraged Richard’s tendency to talk of his family, of anything other than their work. Trey didn’t like chitchat. He liked focus, and determination, and hard work. He liked travel. Distance. Adventure. There was nothing wrong with that. So why was his stomach churning now?

He breathed deeply. It was too damned late to avoid this fiasco, but he’d be damned if he didn’t extricate himself in record time.

Miss Latimer helped him take the first step. ‘Will, why don’t you run along and help Mrs Ferguson with dinner? Lord Treyford and I will take a stroll in the gardens. If that is acceptable, my lord?’

Trey nodded and watched as the boy started to protest, then hung his head. ‘A pleasure to meet you, my lord,’ he said, and turned towards the door.

The boy’s dejected profile was impossible for Trey to ignore. He let loose a silent string of curses. But he was all too familiar with the heavy weight of childish disappointment. ‘Hold, lad,’ he said roughly, and the boy turned. ‘Egypt is as hot as blazes. Yes, I climbed the pyramids, and, no, it was not the least bit frightening. I’ve been uncomfortably close to some crocodiles, too. Egypt is full of wondrous things.’

Trey closed his eyes. Just the thought of Egypt calmed him. He hadn’t expected it, but the country had beguiled him. Time flowed differently there; he’d had a sense that the secrets of the past were just out of his reach, hidden only by a thin veil of mist.

‘And the mummies? Did you bring any back?’ The boy’s eyes were shining.

‘No, although I encountered plenty, both whole and in pieces.’ He glanced over at the girl. ‘Perhaps I will have time to tell you about it before I must go.’

‘Thank you, my lord!’

Miss Latimer wore a frown as she rose to her feet. ‘Just allow me to stop in the front hall to fetch my wrap, and we can be on our way,’ she said.

Good. Perhaps she was as eager to be done with this as he.

Chione wrapped herself well against the chill and led their guest outside, once again restored to her habitual poise. She should be grateful that he had made it easy for her to slip back into her normal, contained role, she told herself firmly, for she had been acting a fool since her first glimpse of Lord Treyford.

She had scarcely been able to help herself. All of that overt masculinity and absolute self-assurance touched something inside of her, stirred to life a part of her that she would rather be left slumbering.

And then she had heard it in his voice. That all-too-familiar longing when he had spoken of the wonders of Egypt. She knew that tone and exactly what it meant. He was one of them.

Like her grandfather, her brother, and even her father. Never happy where they were, always pining for something more exotic, more adventuresome, more dangerous. Or perhaps, just more.

That tiny wistful note that had crept into the earl’s voice; that was all it took to effectively quench all of the flutterings and tinglings and ridiculously rapid heartbeats that had plagued her every time their eyes met.

An adventurer—just like the others. With that realisation she reached for calm, breathed deep and let the veneer of her assumed identity fall back into place. They stepped down into the formal garden and he grudgingly offered her his arm. She took it, then had to school herself not to gasp as a slow, warm burn started in her fingertips, flowed like honey through her, and settled in a rich puddle in the pit of her belly.

Perhaps she wasn’t rid of all of those stirrings. Yet.

‘You are very quiet, Miss Latimer.’ Though his voice was rough, there was a hint of irony hidden in it. ‘Not at all like your brother.’

Chione had to smile at that. ‘No, indeed. Richard was many things, but quiet was not a label he was often burdened with.’ She swept aside a low hanging branch and held it back invitingly. ‘He was too full of life to keep quiet for long.’

He did not answer and they walked in silence for several moments. Despite her disillusionment, Chione could not but acknowledge her heightened awareness of his looming presence. It was more than the sheer size of him, too. The air fairly crackled around him, as if the force of his personality stamped itself on the surrounding atmosphere.

She wondered just what it was that brought him here. Not a happy errand, judging by his nearly constant frown, but really, who could blame the man? Since his arrival he’d had his hat eaten, his clothes bloodied, been entertained in the drawing room by a toddler and quizzed by a little boy. They should count themselves lucky he hadn’t run screaming back to the village.

Chione was glad he was made of sterner stuff than that. ‘Richard wrote of you so often,’ she began. ‘I know he held you in very high regard. Forgive me if I am rude, but I was surprised that you did not know of our … unusual family. Did he not speak to you of us?’

She had chosen poorly, perhaps, because his frown deepened. ‘He spoke of you,’ he said gruffly. ‘And of your grandfather.’ He paused. ‘I should have asked sooner—is he still missing? Have you had no word of him?’

‘No, not yet. Soon, I hope.’

‘Do you still have no idea what might have happened to him, then?’

‘On the contrary, there are many ideas, but no proof of anything.’

‘It has been what? Two years? And yet you hold out hope?’ He sounded incredulous.

‘Not two years, yet, and indeed, I do have hope. I hope every day that this is the one that brings him home. My grandfather has been in a thousand scrapes and survived each one. He told me once that he meant to die a peaceful death in his bed, an old man. I believe he will.’

The earl looked away. ‘Richard felt much the same,’ he said.

Chione felt a fresh pang of loss at his words … Yes, Richard had understood. She blinked and focused intently on the surrounding wood. The forest was alive around them as the birds and the insects busily pursued all the industries of spring. She sighed. Life did go on, and Richard’s responsibilities were hers now.

‘I am happy to have the chance to thank you for the letter you sent to us, on my brother’s death. It was a comfort to know that he had a friend like you with him when he died.’

For a long moment, Lord Treyford made no reply. The path had begun to climb and he paid careful attention to her footing as well as his. When at last he did speak, he sounded—what was it—cautious? Subdued? ‘That is truly what I’ve come for, what I’ve travelled all this way to do. To speak to you about Richard’s death.’

He fell silent again. Chione waited, willing to give him the time he needed. She harboured a grave feeling that she was not going to like what he had to say.

‘Richard’s last thoughts were of you,’ he finally said. They had come out on a little ridge. A bench had been strategically placed to take advantage of the spectacular view. The earl motioned her to it and gingerly lowered himself beside her.

His gaze wandered over the scene. ‘When one hears of Devon, it is always the desolate beauty of Dartmoor.’ He paused. ‘It seems that nothing here is as I expected.’ His gaze was no longer riveted on the view. Instead it roamed over her face, the blue of his eyes more than a match for the sky overhead. After a moment the intensity of his regard began to discomfort her.

She ducked her head and ruthlessly clamped down her own response. She breathed deeply, gathering her strength and reaching for courage. She raised her head and looked him in the eye. ‘Tell me about Richard’s death.’

It was enough to sweep clear the thickening tension between them. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Of course.’

He reached into an inner pocket, drew something out. ‘Just before he died, your brother asked me to give this to you.’ He took her hand from where it rested in her lap and placed the object in it.

It was sharp-edged, and warm from the heat of his body. For several moments that was the sum of Chione’s impressions, for she could not see through her sudden swell of tears. She breathed deeply again, however, and regained control of her emotions. As her vision cleared she got her first good look at the object.

Only to be seized by something uncomfortably close to panic. A wave of nausea engulfed her and she let the thing fall from her suddenly lifeless fingers.

Good God, he had found it.