From her place on the sofa, she surveyed the stuffed bookcases lining the salon. Josiah had been an unsuccessful bookseller before he became an unsuccessful farmer. She knew to the penny what a fortune all this gold-embossed Moroccan leather and creamy paper constituted.
Grace put down the novel she’d hardly glanced at through the afternoon. The marquess must be a committed reader. Books in several languages and on hundreds of topics surrounded her. Unlike other libraries she’d seen, these books had been read, some many times over if creases on the bindings spoke true.
He was a great annotator. She sought out books he’d made notes in, although she was horrified that anyone would scribble over such fine volumes. The comments gave her some clue to his character, clues his continual absence kept to a minimum.
She’d also been through his desk, an unforgivable breach of privacy, but she was too desperate to contain her curiosity. She’d found letters from Lord John Lansdowne, short, curt, discreet, unless one knew what occurred on this enclosed estate.
More interesting had been drafts of articles in English, French, and Latin by someone called Rhodon. She assumed Rhodon was the marquess. Correspondence from editors of learned journals throughout Europe. Admiring notes from fellow scientists. Figures and notations that made little sense to her. Packages of papers forwarded from a London solicitor. Rhodon communicated via intermediaries with his intellectual cronies. She’d even found volumes of what at first she triumphantly decided were diaries. They’d turned out to be meticulously kept records of botanical experiments.
The marquess’s writing was clear and beautiful. Not at all how she imagined the jottings of a madman.
She excused her behavior by saying it was perfectly natural to pry. He was the only other denizen of this well-appointed hell and she was at his mercy.
But she admitted in her heart she was obsessed with the marquess. Did he avoid her because he sensed her unhealthy interest? No virtuous woman should be so physically aware of a man who wasn’t her husband. He was young and beautiful and she’d been trapped for months in a world of decay and death. Her blood warmed at the sight of a strong hand reaching for a wine glass. A hand that didn’t shake, a hand unmarred with the brown stains of old age.
She sighed, impatient with herself. She could pursue evidence in margins like a hunter tracking deer through a thicket. Or she could try and catch her quarry in the open. The sun shone, the day was fresh and she was sick to death of her own edgy company. Perhaps if she spent more time with him, the mad marquess would lose his fascination and become just another man.
Perhaps.
As she rose, she straightened her shoulders the way her brother Philip always had before a fencing lesson. Lessons the young Grace would sneak into the ballroom to watch. The memory of her glittering older brother brought the usual grief. Even though it was two years since she’d learned of his death, she still hardly believed all that shining promise lay in cold earth.
No more sorrow. It was tim
e to act. “En garde, my lord,” she whispered, and left to face her enigmatic opponent.
Grace found the marquess holed up with his roses. He had his back to her and did something abstruse with what looked to her uneducated eyes like a dead stick.
“What do you want?” he growled without glancing up. How did he know she hovered in the brick archway behind him? She wiped her damp palms on the skirts of her garish yellow gown. She’d been busy with needle and thread so at least this dress fitted, even if it was too tight across the bosom. Mrs. Filey had returned the black bombazine but in this warm weather, it itched.
Determined to start as she meant to proceed, she raised her chin. “A charming greeting, my lord.”
He still didn’t turn, but the long muscles of his back tensed under his loose white shirt. “I’m occupied, madam. Perhaps whatever it is can wait until dinner.”
“Yes, it probably could, but I’ll have lost my nerve by then,” she muttered, hoping he wouldn’t hear. But his hearing, like all his other senses from what she could tell, was preternaturally sharp.
“Well, all right, say what…” There was a pause, a sharp crack, then, “Damnation!”
She flushed at his language but didn’t retreat. “You should know by now swearing at me won’t chase me off.”
At last he faced her. As she’d expected, his expression was stiff with well-bred annoyance. At such times, she had no difficulty picturing him as the haughty cynosure of society. “I’ve just wasted three hours’ work.”
“What?” Her attention fell to what he held. The dead stick was now two dead sticks. She raised mortified eyes to his. “I’m so sorry.”
He met her gaze and she wondered what he was thinking. Then his lips twisted in a grimace and he tossed the sticks onto his rubbish pile. “Hell, what does it matter? It isn’t as if I haven’t time to do it again. Time is all I’ve got in this bloody cage.”
The glimpse into his torment sent black shame swirling through her. She bit her lip. What right had she to badger him like a child demanding an adult’s notice? He didn’t owe her anything.
Bending her head, she started to leave. “I shouldn’t have disturbed you.”
He swore again under his breath then took a couple of paces after her. “No, wait.”
His hand circled her arm. He hadn’t touched her since he’d lied about wanting her. Through the thin barrier of yellow silk, his fingers burned like flame.
Shocked, her gaze flew to his. She thought she caught equal astonishment in the golden eyes. Then he masked his expression and his hand dropped away as if he couldn’t bear to prolong the connection. He looked uncomfortable. “Mrs. Paget, forgive me. I’m in a filthy temper. Nothing’s gone right for three days.”
Her flesh tingled from his touch, brief as it had been. She hid the flash of hurt his persistent rejection aroused. “I’m sorry.”
He shook his head and managed a rueful smile that she found far too beguiling. “No, I’m sorry. What do you want to talk about?”