Читать книгу The Rake to Reveal Her - Julia Justiss - Страница 11

Chapter Four

Reviewing their conversation as he climbed the stairs, Dom marvelled at himself. Was the solitude he’d sought wearing on him already, that he felt such a lift at the prospect of inspecting some musty old building?

But thinking about London, or Leicestershire, or even Elizabeth, still brought an automatic shudder of distaste. Perhaps what he really sought was not so much solitude, but a world completely different from the society he’d once enjoyed and the company of those who’d known him there.

Miss Theodora Branwell was certainly different. Though his little brown wren had been more attractive today in a green gown that accentuated her graceful figure, made her skin glow and emphasised her lovely dark eyes, were the stunningly beautiful Lady Elizabeth to have entered the room, most men wouldn’t have given Miss Branwell another glance.

Compared to Elizabeth, who’d been trained since her youth in the art of conversation designed to make her companion feel himself the most fascinating man in the room, Miss Branwell, with her frankness and total lack of subtlety, would be considered unpleasantly plain-spoken and offensively inquisitive.

And yet, though he’d always appreciated Elizabeth’s beauty and avidly anticipated the pleasures of the wedding bed, he didn’t remember ever having the sort of immediate, visceral reaction he’d felt for Miss Branwell. Perhaps that response was intensified, coming as it did after Miss Wentworth’s distaste and representing as it did the first time since his injuries that he’d felt a sense of his own masculine appeal. The first evidence as well that a woman who attracted him could find him desirable for who and what he was now, rather than as the damaged remains of the man he used to be.

But enough analysing. Like today’s rain, Miss Branwell had blown a freshness into his life, lifting his spirits and imbuing him, for this moment, with a sense of lightness and anticipation he hadn’t felt in months. He’d accept it as a gift from Heaven.

Recalling that the walk to the stone building was rather far, he took a swig of the laudanum-laced brandy at his bedside. He didn’t want to end up so cross-eyed with pain by the time they arrived that he was incapable of accurately assessing the building. Or appreciating the company of the lady he was escorting.

Miss Branwell awaited him in the entry as he descended the stairs. ‘I took the liberty of asking your butler if there was a pony trap we might use. He’s having one sent up.’

‘Afraid I might collapse on you?’ he tossed back. And regretted the hasty words, as his mind jumped to other ways he might cover her that had his body immediately hardening in approval.

‘...nursed enough soldiers to know,’ she was saying by the time he got his thoughts back under control. ‘You have the look of a soldier still recovering from his injuries. Did you suffer a lingering fever?’

‘For months,’ he confirmed, no longer surprised at how easy he found it to speak frankly to her. ‘I wasn’t well enough to leave Belgium until quite recently.’

She gave him a quick inspection that his body hoped was more than an assessment of his level of recovery. ‘You’re still rather thin. In my judgement, you should have more careful tending—but that’s for you to decide, so I shall not mention it again. However—’ She stopped herself with a sigh. ‘No, excuse me, I shall say nothing.’

Dom shook his head with a chuckle as they walked out to the vehicle a groom had pulled up outside the entry. ‘You shall have to tell me, you know.’

She looked back at him, smiling faintly as she shook her head. Remembering her rebuke of the previous day, he offered her a steadying hand as she climbed into the vehicle, savouring more than he should the touch of her gloved fingers.

She didn’t turn to see if he had trouble climbing up himself. And though, army veteran that she was, she probably could drive the trap better than he, she made space for him on the bench seat and waited for him to take the reins with nary a solicitous look nor a concerned enquiry about whether he felt well enough to handle them. That, after just pronouncing her nurse’s opinion that he was not fully recovered.

A tiny glow of satisfaction lit within the gloomy depths of his battered self-esteem. She assumed he was adjusting to his handicap, continuing with his life. Expected he would eventually master it.

As he would. Feeling better about his condition than he could remember since his wounding, Dom motioned for the stable lad to release the horse and jump up behind them.

After yesterday’s fiasco with Diablo left him doubting his ability to do anything, his spirits rose further as he discovered he could handle the single horse and simple carriage with ease. The expertise honed through years of practice returned without thought, and as the trap rattled down the lane, he found himself relishing the business of driving.

As Miss Branwell had predicted, the rain had ceased, leaving the air cool and scrubbed clean. Dom exulted in the wind ruffling his hair, the scenery flashing by, the taut feel of the reins in his hand and the horse responding to his commands. With a rush of gratitude to the Almighty, he realised at least one of the pleasures of his former life wasn’t totally lost to him.

Of course, this was only a pony trap, the nag pulling it far from a high-stepping carriage horse. But effortlessly controlling horse and vehicle felt...good. He told himself to stop equivocating and just enjoy it.

His mastery of the reins allowed him to enjoy watching Miss Branwell as well. After noting her chattiness at the house, he was encouraged to discover she could remain silent as well. Sitting relaxed, her hands resting on the rail to steady her over the bumps, she gazed from side to side, her eyes bright with interest. Trusting this one-armed soldier to drive her safely while she investigated her new surroundings, he thought, buoyed by her confidence.

The spring woods just coming into leaf were lovely, and so was his companion. Though, he noted in a reprise of the discriminating standards from his days as ‘Dandy Dom’, the battered-looking bonnet and well-used cloak would go, if he had the dressing of her.

Then again, he’d rather have the undressing of her.

Preoccupied by reining in that line of thought before it bolted into ever more inappropriate directions, he started when she cried out, ‘Goodness, what is that, just ahead?’

Squinting in the direction of her pointing finger, he saw around the corner a stretch of lane bordered on both sides by an expanse of flowers. ‘It’s a bluebell wood,’ he replied. Not having been at Bildenstone during the spring for years, he’d forgotten this part of the lane, less densely treed than the one they’d travelled yesterday, was home to thousands of the little bulbs.

‘Can you slow down?’

‘Of course,’ he said, reining the horse to a stop.

She gazed around her in delight at the sea of blooms surrounding them. ‘It’s as if an ocean had been cast down under the trees! How beautiful!’

Looking at the expanse, he realised it was beautiful. And that, had she not been with him, he would have passed through it, preoccupied by his own problems, with scarcely a glance.

Turning back to him, she said, ‘I can’t get enough of gazing at the woodlands here, the tall trees with their leafy canopies. After the dry plains of India and the scrub of Portugal and Spain, I find them endlessly fascinating.’

He, too, would do well to appreciate every simple pleasure, instead of brooding on what he’d lost. To the attraction and interest she’d generated in him today, he added gratitude for bringing him to recognise that truth.

‘We are fortunate in our forests,’ Dom replied, clicking the horse back into motion, ‘especially those lucky enough to possess a bluebell wood. Now, what was it you were going to tell me and decided not to?’

He laughed at the surprise on her face. ‘Did you think I had forgotten? I must warn you, I have a mind like a poacher’s trap. So...confess.’

‘Very well, but as I had resolved to say nothing, you may not afterwards accuse me of interfering! It’s just...I noticed that your butler is rather elderly. I expect, having been around him for years, you haven’t marked the passing of time, but the truth is, he struggles to open that heavy door. Does he still bring in the tea tray? I imagine it’s difficult for him. Of course, that’s only my observation. It’s really none of my business.’

Dom recalled Wilton carrying in the service to his callers yesterday, lugging a tray full of victuals from the kitchen up to the library for him this afternoon.

‘It’s been more than seven years since I visited, and years before that since the family resided here,’ he admitted. ‘Beyond noting in a general way that Wilton had aged, I’m ashamed to say I never considered whether resuming duties he’d not had to perform for years would be hard on him.’

He’d come up from London in a laudanum haze that enabled him to bear the jolting of the journey, then shut himself in the master’s chamber and, until yesterday, hadn’t set foot out of the house. To his mortification, he hadn’t given a thought to how his unexpected arrival must have upset the routine of the handful of servants who’d remained to oversee Bildenstone Hall during the family’s long absence, or the strain on all of them required to extract the place from its holland covers and make it habitable.

‘Even though I don’t intend to entertain, I should probably hire more servants,’ he admitted. ‘While I’m at it, perhaps I will put Wilton out to pasture.’

‘Oh, I don’t think—’ she began before closing her lips.

Dom laughed outright. ‘You might as well tell me the whole. I promise not to accuse you of interfering.’

‘Wilton has been long at Bildenstone Hall?’

‘He’s been butler since I was a lad.’

‘Then I don’t think I’d retire him—not immediately, after such a long absence, lest he feel you are dissatisfied with his service. Why not find someone to serve as under-butler, whom Wilton can train up as his eventual replacement? Then, after a suitable interval, you can offer him a cottage nearby and a generous settlement for his lifetime of loyalty. If the family hasn’t resided here for some time, it probably would be wise to hire more staff, which will also earn you the good will of the neighbourhood— paying jobs are always prized, especially now, with so many being let go from the army.’

‘That sounds like excellent advice. If you have any other suggestions, pray offer them.’

She uttered a delightful gurgle of a laugh. ‘As if you thought I could keep my opinions to myself! Goodness, though, your family must possess some magnificent properties, if they chose to leave the beauties of Bildenstone for another location.’

‘It’s worse than that—Papa actually had to purchase the other property. Having always loved hunting, both haring and fox, he happened to meet Hugh Meynell, now of Quorn Hall in Leicestershire.’

He paused, but as no hint of recognition dawned in her eyes, he continued. ‘Meynell, another hunting enthusiast, believed there was no reason that hounds couldn’t be bred for a good nose and for speed, which would allow fox hunting at any time of the day, not just early in the morning when the foxes, weary after a night of hunting, return to their dens too tired to outrun the slow hounds. My father thought it an intriguing idea, and along with Meynell and some others, experimented with producing fast-running hounds. So absorbed did he become in the project, he determined to obtain a property in Quorn country, where he could continue the breeding experiments and hunt with Meynell’s pack.’

He paused, remembering. ‘I’d just outgrown my first pony when we relocated to Upton Park. It took only one hunt to make me as keen about the chase as my father. So I can’t say I regretted leaving Bildenstone, despite the beauties of its bluebell wood.’

‘Appreciation for flowers isn’t generally a trait possessed by young boys,’ she replied. ‘I don’t wonder you found the excitement of Leicestershire much more to your liking. So you devoted yourself to the hunt?’

‘Single-mindedly. Which reminds me,’ he said, recalling her hours waiting on his wall. ‘What would you have done if I’d not relented and admitted you today?’

Following the sudden change in topic without a blink, she said, ‘Waited a bit longer, then tracked down your estate agent. When I first proposed to lease Thornfield, I was told your family hadn’t occupied the property for years, so finding an owner in residence was an unwelcome surprise. If the agent thought you were indifferent to the use of the building, or were not planning to remain long at Bildenstone, I would have proceeded. Otherwise, I would have made plans to go elsewhere.’

He had to laugh. ‘You really are resourceful!’

‘Papa always said you can never count on the enemy to do what you expect; for a sound battle plan, one must devise alternates for every imaginable contingency.’

He smiled down at her. ‘I hope you don’t consider me the enemy.’

She gazed up into his eyes. ‘No, I consider you...’ Her words trailed off, her lips slightly parted as she stared at his face...his mouth.

Attraction crackled like heat lightning between them again, scorching his face, leaving his mouth tingling. Immobilised by its force, Dom wasn’t able to tear his gaze from hers until the jolting of the vehicle over a particularly large bump forced him to return his attention to his driving.